


The Heroism of Tyranny

by Natalman



Category: Overlord (Triumph Video Games), 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), BAMF Midoriya Izuku, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Harems, How Do I Tag, Midoriya Izuku is an Overlord, Multi, Overpowered Midoriya Izuku
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:33:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24292918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natalman/pseuds/Natalman
Summary: "Welcome welcome depraved strangers, to a tale of noble deeds and cruel domination, a fable of the modern idioms of heroes...PAH, such things us vile cretins could never stand.Fret not strangers, for this tale will have heart, and smashing excoitment.As the poems of his return come fourth before our very eyes!!!My fellow evil friends, sit down and witness, for this tale, this....epic adventure will have love so furious, the very netherworld itself will be too much for the reds, so sit back, roast a seal, crack open the booty and marvel, at his domain springs fourth!!!!So listen, as his story unfolds, for finaly, at long last, Evil...."-Quaver
Relationships: Gnarl (Overlord - Triumph Video Games) & Midoriya Izuku, Hatsume Mei/Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Inko & Midoriya Izuku, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 39
Kudos: 188





	1. ...always finds a way

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a crossover idea that spawned on a Discord I am on and I decided to try and make it happen.  
> I've been a big fan of the Overlord games since I first found them and hope I can do them a little injustice with this story.
> 
> I'd like to thank Smithy_0f_1nfinium for the Summary and being a major contributor to making this happen.  
> I'd like to also thank SortHac and WhiteTiger789 for giving it a beta read.
> 
> As usual with my fics if there is anything I deem noteworthy about the chapter itself you will find it in the end.

_"Good always triumphs."_

That is one of the truths of the universe. The light vanquishes those who seek to bring the world to ruin. It was less of an unwritten rule than a constant within the cosmos.

At least, that is what people wish to believe. You see, people, humans specifically are many things. Scared, weak, and most of all: _Stupid._

There is no _"Justice"_ , no _"Natural Order"_ of things, they made those things up because they can't fathom the universe for what it is. Uncaring, cruel, delightfully merciless.

Over the centuries however it appears that the light has indeed gotten closer to a deciding victory, disgustingly so.

Until recently, about a few decades ago someone woke us back up. I am uncertain who that fool was but whoever they were a swift death at the hands of our Lord will be the only gift we will grant him.

For now we will search for our new lord in this...bah, _"World of Heroes"_.

I never worry about such things, for you see, among us servants of evil a simple truth became known since the dawn of time:

**"Evil always finds a way."**

\- Gnarl, the Minion Master

* * *

Searching for a new master to bring proper evil back upon the world was harder than the Minions had anticipated.

They had many possible candidates, in fact there were too many. Most notably however, they were all pathetic.

Save for a single exception so far they were not at all what the Minions needed. Unfortunately said exception had neither the motivation nor the fortitude to become their next master. They had intended to throw him off the nearest cliff but he had escaped them. To his fortune the Minions lacked the forces to risk losing any more.

However something bothered Gnarl, the oldest Minion alive. Gnarl was for the lack of a better term, the first Minion. He had served every Overlord and had seen armies rise and fall against them for so many centuries that he had forgotten half of it already.

What had bothered him was that for all the evil all around them there wasn’t much good to counter it. Somehow, something had gone horribly wrong in the world that even the most stalwart of heroes of this time did not make him feel the same disgust as it had for the old ones. What he felt was apathy.

It brought a smirk to his face, so there were barely any real heroes in this time? That was making the only issue finding a proper Overlord and bringing this world back to where it belonged: Under his new masters heel.

“Gnarl! Gnarl! We found another one! This one’s got some real potential.”

The old Minion Master was dragged from his thoughts by Gloob, a Brown Minion who had been around the Minion trenches for quite a long time; he had seen the rise and fall of the last true Overlord.

Usually if Gnarl heard “We found another one!” from a minion these days his eyes glazed over and he was ready to beat someone to death with his walking stick but if Gloob of all Minions said it there had to be some merit to it. He at least hoped so for Gloob’s sake.

* * *

If Minions despised something aside from good, cute and fluffy things it was sunlight. It didn’t hurt a Minion to be exposed to the sun but it was annoying as a Minions eyes were adjusted to shades and darkness.

Through the underbrush of a small forest Gloob had led Gnarl to a clearing.

“There! Over there. Look at him, ferocious.” Gloob said, pointing towards some children at a clearing.

Gnarl had a mixture of a frown and a smile on his face. The children were apparently ganging up on one their own, humans, stupid as they come.

He realized of course what that idiot Gloob had seen as ‘ferocity’. The blond boy that was currently beating up one of his companions would certainly seem like Overlord material to most Minions.

Loud, angry and with more delusions of grandeur than an entire army of idiots. However that was not what Gnarl saw. What Gnarl saw in that scuffle was the boy currently being beaten up.

Sure he looked like nothing compared to the other boy if you were only looking for physical aspects. What Gnarl however saw was ‘it’, ‘it’ being the glint of true Overlord-ship that every Overlord held. A will, unbent, unbroken by the world around him.

That other boy? He was like everyone else in this time, too warped by whatever had happened to the world since the Minions had last surfaced to be anything beyond pathetic. Not evil enough to be a part of the darkest forces of the world, not good enough to be anything but another stepping stone for an actual hero to use.

* * *

It hadn’t taken Gnarl much to get the other Minions to focus on the real treasure in front of them. No matter how dim any and all of them were, Gnarl had been their Minion Master for countless millennia at this point and the little hoard that had survived to this day had only done so thanks to him.

Following the boy home was a task in itself, because unlike the olden days there wasn’t much vegetation to hide in and without an Overlord to lead them a lot of the Minions had about as much focus as a box full of starving rabid weasels.

Gnarl had decided to drag Giblet along, he would have taken some of the other elites but Giblet was hardened to the point of absurdity, working the forge all day would do that to a Minion, that aside he couldn’t risk Mortis. If they lost their means of resurrection entirely they’d be dead in the water, literally.

It was evening when they found the right place, an apartment as it was apparently called. Gnarl never got humans, first they lived in hovels, then in larger hovels, then in castles, then in cities. Then for some bizarre reason they decided to divvy up the cities, castles, large hovels etc. right back down to something the size of a room. Humans, bloody stupid creatures.

* * *

Inko Midoriya was despairing. Well, no, to be accurate she had been despairing for close to two years already. Ever since Izuku’s quirk test results had come back negative things had just been going downhill.

When he didn’t come home with new scrapes or bruises that weren’t there at the start of the day he came home looking as if someone had stepped over his grave. Hisashi’s continued absence hadn’t helped matters. The fact that he wouldn’t explain where he was currently let alone why he wasn’t sure when he could come home had done nothing to sooth her nerves.

She was currently sitting in the kitchen rubbing her temples and trying her best to think of something. There just had to be something she could do, some way to help her son. She had heard of ways people had gained quirks later in life but most of them involved unsavory methods to gain them and that was not an option.

She heard a knock at the door, pausing slightly, thinking for a moment she had imagined it before she heard it again. Who knocked at doors at this time of the day? Or better yet who did not know what a door bell was and decided to knock on a door?

When she opened the door she first looked straight ahead only noticing a small glowing rock hanging from a branch-like walking stick. After a moment, she looked down.

“Oh. It’s you.”

Standing there were two Goblin-like beings, one with brown skin, wearing a full face metal mask and a metal worker's apron, his arms and legs covered in faded scars.

The other one was the one she was addressing, she didn’t know his name but his description matched what she had been informed about by her mother and her grandmother to be on the lookout for.

A Goblin-like creature with dark gray skin, a white goat beard, a stitched looking scar across one eye and hunched stature. What passed as clothes looked more like leather rags stitched together across his back.

The older Minion blinked “You know who I am?” he asked in a scratchy ancient sounding tone.

“The basics, yes. I don’t know your name but I have been told of you. Come in. I take it you are looking for my husband? Seeing as your kind has been without leadership for a long time.”

The two Minions were utterly baffled, so she knew who they were and what they wanted but saw no issue with it? That was a new one.

Gnarl crooked his head slightly, staring into Inko’s eyes. Then he laughed before coughing a little.

“A descendant of young Mistress Kelda. To think I would see one of her kin ever again in my existence it is too bad to be true. I take it your family has been very aware of its history.”

Inko glared slightly at the ancient Minion. “Indeed. I know what it is you and your master do. I also know that it was and is nothing but trouble in both the old days and today.”

Gnarl laughed again. “Young miss I would like to inform you of something. Trouble is not our business, _evil_ is. **_True_ ** evil. **_Proper_ ** evil. What walks around out there as both heroism and villainy is barely even worth our time.”

Inko rolled her eyes. “Get to the point. What do you want?”

Gnarl grinned. “We were merely out and about seeing the sights of this world once again. It is a rarity for a Minion to find his way to the surface these days. Thus we found ourselves in a little clearing and watched the hardships your offspring had to deal with today.”

Gnarls smile didn’t fade as realization came to Inko what they wanted here. “It is such a shame, do you not agree? Your poor offspring, mistreated by his peers, pushed down every day. It is easy for one such as me to see, you know? All of our masters were treated the same way before they began.”

Inko knew what the little Goblin bastard was trying to do, sweet talking her into letting them take Izuku with them. Perhaps to raise him into the next Overlord, she of course had no intention of letting them.

“I understand that you have your worries and doubts but ask yourself: What future does your offspring have in this world? We have returned here over the past few decades, miss. Power is all that matters to these people. The child with the blond hair, who is responsible for your offspring’s injuries, is living proof of that.”

Inko froze, she had contemplated attracting something small and sharp like one of the kitchen knives to make them retreat. However ‘the child with blond hair’, was unmistakably Katsuki Bakugo. Who else would Izuku hang around with on an afternoon.

_‘Even his best friend…’_ she thought. _‘...treats him like he is worthless.’_ She sighed deeply, dragging her fingers past her eyes slightly.

“Under. _One._ Condition.” She finally said in a calm, cold tone.

“Only if he agrees to this.” Inko said finally, she knew her son loved heroes more than anything. It would take something absurd for him to…

“Okay.” There was a pause, like the universe just froze in place for a fraction of a second.

There he was standing at the door to his room, peering into the kitchen partially hidden by the door.

Inko would have almost flinched a little if she hadn’t been told about how an Overlord looked like, she could see that Izuku’s eye while still green was glowing slightly.

“I-Izuku are you sure? You realize that you can’t be a hero like All Might if you go with them right?” Inko asked, she was going to accept that he wanted this, she just needed to be sure that he knew what he was doing.

“Why not? Heroes save people right? Even bad guys need someone to save them.”

There was a strange, dark, determination in his expression. She knew there was no arguing with him from here.

Gnarl cackled slightly. “Marvelous! Come then boy, we have lots of work to do.”

Gnarl turned to usher towards the door.

“Mama comes with us.” Izuku said, a strange tone of authority in his voice. Gnarl stopped, frowned without either of them seeing it and returned to his usual dour demeanor.

He hadn’t heard that kind of tone in centuries and by evil had he missed it.

“As you wish, master. Giblet! See to it that some of the Browns take anything that is not nailed down from this place and be quick about it! The young master and his guest will be heading to the Netherworld Tower with me.”

Giblet stood to attention for a second before disappearing through the entrance door.

“Come now, we have precious night time to lose.” The old Minion motioned to the door.

* * *

With that and nary a sound Inko and Izuku Midoriya disappeared from the face of the earth as if they never existed.

No one knew where they had gone to, or how it was that they were suddenly there one day and gone overnight. Their apartment was found emptied of everything, silver wear, the TV, chairs, tables, lamps, personal belongings etc.

Everything was just gone.

Even more confusing was that a little while later, about a year or two, Hisashi Midoriya also vanished, though with much more of a mess involved.

To onlookers it was as if they had all packed up shop and decided to ditch Japan without telling anyone.

There were a few people however who were even more confused by their disappearance.

Especially a young blond boy who, with the defiance only the desperate had, refused to believe that the Midoriyas had actually disappeared.

Even as the years dragged on he would staunchly refuse to even consider that they could have actually gone anywhere and believed that they were either hiding or had done something to anger someone that forced them to leave.

The idea that he could possibly be responsible for their disappearance never even crossed his mind.

* * *

Deep beneath the earth, far _far_ below any place a human could safely reach, was the Netherworld.

The Netherworld itself was merely a vast cavern, stretching for miles upon miles in every direction. Here the first Minions were brought into the world and here the fourth Overlord used to once assert his influence over the world.

Hanging from the ceiling like an enormous stalactite, hung the Netherworld Tower.

Izuku and Inko followed Gnarl as he stepped out of a portal into a vast hall, they could see and feel the eyes of several other Minions on them as they walked down several stone steps, before turning to realize that they were in a massive throne room.

“We Minions haveserved every Overlord since the dawn of time itself. While these times are long forgotten, the Netherworld, our eternal home, remains. The past few centuries, as you can see, have not been kind to us.”

Gnarl motioned to the dilapidated banners and destroyed braziers that littered the vast hall they were in.

“However, we have not been idle. For decades now have we attempted to return this place to the glory of our last masters time. Our attempts were of middling results, even as we tried to revive some old Overlords to potentially bring evil back to its feet. The last four promising souls we brought here were...pathetic and laughable comes to mind but I should not speak ill of the damned.”

Gnarl laughed with a scratchy tone in his voice.

“That was then, in these times we are far more thin spread, I would dare say that for us Minions, these are the end times. Unless you, young master, return this place to its former glory and beyond.”

Gnarl paused for dramatic effect; he knew that he needed to tug on his new masters heart strings if only to ensure he would give it his all.

“Our once grand pursuit would come to a whimpering end without you. It is accurate to say that you are the only symbol of hope we have left.”

The Overlord like shine in Izuku’s eyes told the old Minion that his little spiel had the desired effect.

“I-I’ll do it, we’ll show them what we can do!”

Gnarl grinned, ah how easily a youth with potential could be brought to the proper side. A few sweet words here a bit of feigned empathy there and suddenly the Minions situation was a far more acceptable one.

“So it shall be. Gloob! Bring the young master to the training grounds! Somebody fetch Gubbin! This entire tower is a mess and unfit for a new master and his guest to reside in! One of you unchain Quaver and remove the stitches from his mouth! The time for eating rats is over!”

Within seconds about twenty Brown Minions sprung into action, a few of them dragging Izuku along to train, they had a lot of work ahead of them.

“I hope you understand that I will not idly stand around this place and let you turn Izuku into a monster. He will make his own decisions as your lord.”

Inko said with a glare.

Gnarl just laughed.

“Miss you seem to misunderstand, every Overlord makes their own decisions. We merely show him what he can do, the boy deserves a proper upbringing. A proper **evil** upbringing. In which you will of course partake as you see fit. You are his guest and so you are invariably ours.”

This seemed to placate Inko for now at least, at least to Gnarl it seemed that way.

With that Gnarl wandered off, wistfully staring at an old faded Portrait of the previous Overlord.

While the return of true evil to the world was still a while off, Gnarl was excited. He had waited for centuries, what were a few more years to him?

He could feel it in his bones, yes, the old magic of the Netherworld Tower was ever so slightly returning.

He cackled, for he knew it was once again time.

“Good always triumphs,'' they say. While that may be...” He turned to leave towards the training ground to watch his young masters training begin.

“ **Evil. Always. Finds. A way.** ”


	2. Flames of the Forge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to GotSh0cks from the Hoard for the editing!  
> Thanks to Smithy for the intro part.

_There once was a little scrawny lad, with a big brother's foot and elder sister's heel on his every move, alone for his birthdays, neglected and scorned by his own fellow flesh for naught but schemes and war sized pillow fights._

_On a birthday like any other, for the first time in so long, the lad was given a gift, a boon from a belated bloody uncle and a pat on the back from the only papa he had._

_With renewed vigor from this bloody boon, his time dawned, through minions, with halflings smoked for rats, a jester smited to smile no more._

_Pesky man dogs buried under dirt, the lad's frown grew and grew as he came close to his heart beating happily. On his special day, the lad became a lord, and put both his heels on his petty tiny siblings!!!_

_Poem for the First Overlord – Chatter, the First Jester_

* * *

While, deep within the bowels of the earth, evil was once again being whipped into shape by the Minions, both figuratively and literally, the world above was changing rapidly.

Inko had made certain that some of the Brown Minions were put to good use and brought them news from above whenever possible. At first they just brought newspapers, some of which were even outdated by the time they brought them down.

“Notorious vigilante Stendhal has not been sighted for the past six months, incident reports of Professional Hero O’Clock indicate that the vigilante may have died in a confrontation with unknown parties...”

Some it was just inane advertisements the Minions had mistaken for current news as the word “new” showed up. Inko threw those out the second she got her hands on them, which was easier said than done; at times as the Minions were like cats chasing laser pointers if something caught their eye.

After a few weeks they had brought something that disturbed her a lot more than she had expected. A small newspaper article, a missing persons report. Hers, more specifically. Not hers and Izuku’s, just her own.

“Inko Midoriya went missing on Day XX of Month XX...”

She didn’t even read further beyond that. She couldn’t believe it, no mention of Izuku missing at all.

_Nowhere._

A six-year-old boy went missing and not a soul cared, she could only assume it was because he was quirkless. If she had doubts previously that the world needed to change and that Izuku was in the best hands possible, she no longer did.

* * *

Izuku’s training with the Minions was, for the lack of a merciful word, brutal. Was he still a six-year-old child? Yes. Did the Minions take it easy on him? No.

He had spent the past couple of weeks training physically with the Minions, driven to exhaustion time and time again. However, if anything could be said about his training it was that he was probably the most dangerous six-year-old boy alive as he had already been forced to kill three wolves and something that reminded him vaguely of a giant hamster. All with his bare hands.

However, for some reason, none of it felt wrong or frightening to him. He couldn’t have told you why, or cared to explain it to anyone if they had asked, but this? This was satisfying. Like he was born to be brutal and angry at the way the world treated those it deemed beneath others.

The Minions were certainly helping this, as vicious as they were towards outsiders, they constantly challenged and encouraged him. If things got too dangerous they sprung into action within nanoseconds, making sure their future lord wasn’t in any more mortal danger than they themselves were.

Inko took the time and care to tend to whatever wounds ‘walking it off’ couldn’t heal, not just for Izuku but for the Minions as well. As much as Gnarl would deride it as “needless meddling” she could tell that even the Minions appreciated someone who didn’t treat them as expendable.

* * *

As time passed things changed drastically topside. Japan was seeing a radical shift in values, more dealings of dangerous quirk enhancing drugs for one. Curiously, several cases similar to the Midoriya’s started occurring all over Japan.

At first only a few select cases were found of people going missing without a trace, then within months, up to two hundred people disappeared with no hint as to where they disappeared to.

Things only escalated further as entire families were seemingly wiped off the map by Hero vs. Villain confrontations while the Hero Commission tried to shift blame.

Dark clouds were gathering over professional heroism.

* * *

Ten years passed within the blink of an eye. Inko had barely felt the change. The Tower had started improving drastically from its dilapidated state to the point that she felt that if she ever had to return to her old apartment she would probably reflexively duck underneath the low ceilings.

Izuku’s physical training had done wonders. He had grown from a scrawny, small boy to a truly massive man, his height alone putting him quite a ways above many people in Japan. Inko honestly wondered if he could stand eye to eye with All Might himself. However Izuku’s training was far from complete and despite Inko’s tutoring she felt that if Gnarl’s teachings were left unchallenged Izuku would devolve into a Berserker eventually.

Today however was special, Izuku had just a day ago turned sixteen. The Minions had planned for the special day to be yesterday, obviously, birthdays were always a special occasion especially in magic circles but Giblet had taken a bit longer than expected in fixing ‘it’ up.

The ‘it’ in question was a gauntlet, the second of a pair of gauntlets. Originally there had been only one.

The **‘Minions Gauntlet’** was an ancient piece of magic craftsmanship designed to enable the Overlord wearing it to control their underlings, Minion or otherwise. It had been reforged countless times but remained a sacred artifact of the Minions since it was first given form. On the back of the hand of this Gauntlet a Minion face could be seen together with a large amber-like stone that glowed ominously.

The **‘Masters Gauntlet’** however, was Giblet's own craftsmanship and the first of its kind. Quite a few Overlords had been caught out in battlefields with broken swords, axes and warhammers alike with no way of defending themselves beyond their magic and the Minions had eventually decided that this would not do.

So Giblet had worked tirelessly to create the second gauntlet, using what knowledge he had retained of the olden days to replicate not just the original appearance but the high-level magic needed to make it work.

This Gauntlet looked almost identical to its counterpart but with no face on the back of the hand and slightly more like an average plate metal gauntlet, if only marginally so.

* * *

Creating a magic object was only part of the fun however. The Minions had long ago realized a big problem with a lot of their magic-related objects. Their last master had been beaten by someone ripping the ‘Minion Gauntlet’ straight up his arm, leaving the entire army routed and confused with how to proceed, thus making them easy pickings for their enemies.

That would not do. A plan was devised to prevent future Overlords from stepping into the same pitfalls. The first step had been completed centuries ago, by Gnarl himself.

The Minions had led Izuku to the very center of the Netherworld caverns, to the deepest part of the round cavern, right underneath the Netherworld Tower itself.

Held there, in spiraling towers of rock at the center of a black, glowing lake of pure liquid dark magic was the Netherworld Heart. The lake was several hundred meters in diameter and deep enough that a person could be completely submerged within it without being seen, purple and black bolts of energy arced across its surface. The heart itself was a smooth, dark purple orb large enough for a person to be entirely enveloped by it; if you looked very carefully a vaguely humanoid outline could be seen in it.

Gnarl stood at the edge of the lake as Izuku, led by Gloob, approached.

Much to Gnarl’s annoyance Inko had insisted on being present for this, if he didn’t appreciate the woman’s toughness and the fact that she had become a valuable asset and pillar among the younger Minions he would have seen to it she was disposed of.

“This is the first time an Overlord has seen the Netherworld Heart with his own eyes, young master. While the last Overlord’s connection with magic made him attuned to the Netherworld itself he never beheld it. However you will do much more than merely see it. This, my lord, is the source of _all_ Overlords. The origin of evil, if you will.”

Several Minions came along with Izuku and Gloob, carrying two pedestals with a gauntlet held in place on each.

“As such we can not simply risk making you like any other Overlord before you. The Gauntlets you see here.” Gnarl motioned to both of the pedestals.

“Are not mere tools of Overlords but rather the lifeblood of your future. The **Masters Gauntlet** and the **Minions Gauntlet**.”

Gnarl paused, letting the words sink in, dramatic pauses were among his favorite past times.

“Once you put them on, your last test to become a true Overlord begins. You shall wade into the lake.” He motioned towards the Heart at the center of the lake.

“And touch the Netherworld Heart to forever bind yourself to it.”

Gnarl paused again, watching Izuku look first from the Gauntlets, to the Heart, then to his mother, and then back to Gnarl himself. He could tell even in his old age that the boy was wondering what to do. At least he believed it to be so.

“Now I understand if you are...”

Gnarl’s words were cut off by the clinking sounds of Gauntlets being put onto forearms. Izuku splayed his fingers for a bit, pausing and looking at the large glowing stone at the back of each Gauntlet for a little before walking straight past Gnarl and into the lake.

Inko didn’t try to stop him, as much as every fiber of her body, mind, and soul wanted her to. She knew that even if this could be dangerous for him, knowing the Minions as long as she had, she had no chance of convincing her son of turning back now.

With every step Izuku took from the edge of the lake towards its center, purple and black lightning arced up and along every part of his body as he disappeared into the endless blackness of the lake. His skin crackled and felt itchy like something was getting beneath his skin and through his entire being.

Above the surface all the Minions and Inko could do was watch as a singular, increasingly large light traveled at a slow steady pace and with unrelenting consistency as it approached the center spire.

* * *

Once Izuku’s head was submerged, he didn’t close his eyes. He saw only blackness with gray outlines where the ground met the walls of the lake around him at first. Then, wisp-like apparitions of people in horned helmeted armors appeared around him, floating above the lake floor and circling around him.

Overlords of both ancient times and more recent ones as well he figured. They stopped a distance away from him as he got to the very center of the lake itself, pointing at something beneath him. He paused but for a moment to look down and if he wasn’t already buried beneath liquid magic he would have screamed.

Beneath him gigantic creatures with red glowing eyes were holding something in place. The creatures themselves had countless arms and even more limb-like tentacles where their legs should have been. They were not the scariest part of this.

Standing there, contained in an Orb red as blood, stood a person, or what he thought at least once was a person. They looked like most of the wisp-like Overlords but the glow of their eyes was different. Each of the others had goals and intentions within the shine of their eyes. This one? This singular creature's eyes spoke but a scant few words.

**“Suffer, unworthy one.”**

The Orb however was dragged back into the endless darkness by the gigantic creatures before anything happened to Izuku. He paused for only a moment longer before continuing onward, the pain of this dark lake dancing across his skin as if it was not even there.

* * *

It took a few minutes before Izuku slowly re-emerged at the center of the lake, appearing at the edge of the center island, changed and yet the same.

His skin had taken a gray tone from head to toe with jagged, green, lightning-like patterns across his arms, legs and torso. He stared at his fingers a little as if he was unsure of what the rest of his senses were telling him matched his eyes. The gauntlets had fused with his forearms. He clenched his fists slightly before bringing his left hand to the Netherworld Heart.

The entire Netherworld shuddered as lightning bolts seemingly evaporated the lake around the Heart itself, lightning bolts dancing across Izuku’s entire being once again.

As it ended Izuku let his hand fall and turned away from the Heart, walking back through the now completely dried basin where the lake had been back to his mother and the Minions.

The Heart had shown him how things could have been, who he could have become and how it all could have ended. Yet, it was all worthless. Nothing in those possibilities meant a thing to him. He made his own choices and had chosen his fate. The world would either bend to his will or shatter beneath it.

When he arrived back on the shore he started at the Minions cheered, Gnarl looked satisfied and to his surprise his mother looked almost a little proud.

“Master. A weapon befitting of your might,” Gloob said as the Minions brought a one-handed bladed Mace to him. He looked it over, holding it with the Master’s Gauntlet. Suddenly it vanished into the Gauntlet making him pause before he made it reappear. He smiled.

“ **_Gloob, I shall remember your name even in decades. One such as you deserves a title.”_ **Izuku said calmly, his voice echoing throughout the entire Netherworld. Raising his other hand, the crystal on the ‘Minions Gauntlet’ shining for a moment. Around Gloob’s eyes pronged markings appeared.

“ **_Arise! Gloob the Weapon Master. For from today on the Minions shall rely on you to ensure that they are equipped for our conquests ahead.”_ **

There was a long pause from all ends, Gnarl himself was stunned, few Overlords empowered specific Minions, even less had done so willingly outside of a war scenario.

Gloob lowered his entire being to the floor so low you could have mistaken him for a floor rug.

“You honor me Overlord.”

Izuku laughed. Gloob had spent the past ten years ensuring his survival and his continued progress, this was the least he could do.

“ **_See to it that I do not regret my choice Weapon Master.”_ **

* * *

Something had gone horribly wrong with the world, ever since that fateful day, when about half a decade ago, **‘All For One’** the shadow dictator of Japan and **‘All Might’** the Number 1# Hero of Japan clashed; something had changed.

When they both vanished from the public eye that day their disappearance caused a madness to take hold of the entire country.

Fanaticism, of the cruelest kind, engulfed the youngest generations of Japan, heroes and villains alike.

“ _All For One lives forever! For through us his death shall be forever avenged!”_

**“All Might will never die! For he lives in all of us!”**

Little would those spouting these sayings know that both men had survived their injuries and were merely influencing things behind the scenes.

Even fewer would realize that in the big scheme neither man would hold much of a factor.

For beneath the Earth, his training completed and of a mere twenty human years of age the last Overlord rose and from the Minions a shout that could be felt even on the surface was heard,

“ **_For the Overlord!”_ **

* * *

Izuku had rarely gone topside over the past decade and a half. Mostly to train in different areas in the world that the Minions could not provide in the Netherworld caverns.

However in the last three years he had gone topside a few times for a very specific reason: Life Force. Minions, unlike other creatures were purely created from the Life Force of other beings and while killing humans and animals was a perfectly reasonable way of obtaining Life Force it was also a really, really messy affair that attracted more attention than it was worth.

As such, Izuku had come topside to apply one of the staples of Overlord-ship: ‘Domination’. The ability to control people through the power and presence an Overlord naturally developed over time.

Not merely a magic spell cast over people, the ‘Evil Presence’ was a power each Overlord possessed in some form, it was their will made manifest, you either yielded to the Overlord’s command or you broke under it.

Izuku had taken control of at least a small village worth of people over the past few years with nary a sound being heard of this, all in effort to ensure that a steady, if slow, stream of Life Force, goods, and information was brought to the Netherworld Tower. It had been a precarious and dangerous affair as his power base was still woefully weak and if whispers of a mysterious threat got to the authorities his future endeavors could be endangered.

However it all soon paid off. Devilish news had reached the Netherworld Tower, the Minions of Fire, the Reds, had been sighted.

* * *

In a dense forest a few birds were disturbed from their treetop homes as a circle of rocks seemingly exploded, a dark green portal forming in the center of it.

Izuku stepped out of the portal, clad fully in the armour of an Overlord. A horn adorned helmet and plated armor adorned with the visages of the Minions covering him from head to toe.

His face was concealed by a magically enforced darkness with only the glow of his eyes reminding one that there was indeed a man in that suit.

“ _Sire? Do you hear me? It has been a long while since we had the need to use this communication and observation spell so I hope it still functions as expected. This is unfortunately a one-way communication as we lack the power to maintain the normal spell. All in due time I assure you.”_

Izuku looked around as several of the Browns sprung out of a smaller hill-like portal. Only ten of them. He did not want to risk too many of his Minions. As much as Gnarl called them ‘expendable’ and ‘willing to die for him’, he still viewed them as his friends. He knew his Minions appreciated it even if Gnarl found it to be ‘emotional humbug’.

“ _The Reds should be close, Sire, they seem to be at the edge of the territory the local heroes occupy. From what the scouts have told us there appears to be an emergency currently happening, leaving you to retrieve the Reds without much opposition if you are quick about it.”_

Izuku started towards the edge of the small forest, noticing at its edge that something was odd. The forest ended at a set line, there were no trees past a specific point. Looking around the large clear area he noticed that this forest was most likely being preserved for some odd reason.

Down the hill and at least ten to twenty minutes of a trek away he could see where he was. This was the edge of U.A Hero University. The Reds, if the Browns he had summoned were to be believed, were located near what looked to be a scrapyard facing in his direction.

Had you told him he would be trying to attack this place one day a decade ago he would have called you crazy...or killed you. One of the two.

He waved the Browns to follow him and took off ahead of them down the hill. To his surprise the security was incredibly lax at best and completely absent in this area, leaving the entirety of the trip to the Scrapyard rather uneventful.

* * *

Sitting in his office the Rat-Bear-Dog Principal of U.A University was observing camera footage of the Unforeseen Situation Joint, which had a mere few minutes ago come under attack by a large contingent of villains.

Principal Nezu had to admit he was worried, not merely for the students or the teachers but for the entire state of Japan at this point.

He had kept track of strange happenings all across the country and this was just one of a chain of events that unsettled him.

Had he been any other person the small motion alarm at the scrapyard the support students used to gather raw materials for their projects would have gone entirely unnoticed.

Being who he was however, it neither went unnoticed nor did the intruders go unrecognized. He stopped seeing the massive wall of a man in full, knight-style armor approach the premises with what appeared to be a small hoard of Goblin like creatures.

He sipped his tea, though his hands were shaking slightly.

_So._

His worries had been justified after all. The Overlords were real and not mere fairy tales.

He thought for a long while on how to proceed and decided to let the Overlord take what he wanted and let him go unmolested.

The blood of students and teachers alike would be on his paws today already, for the lack of security at the Unforeseen Situation Joint was a flaw he had not considered for years. He did not need to add the deaths of even more students or teachers to his conscience.

* * *

The Browns were having a lot of fun, as Izuku observed. They were a crafty bunch, even if Gnarl loved to downplay their abilities.

Within a few minutes of them entering the scrapyard the ten Browns had armored themselves to the proverbial and literal teeth. While every bit of metal was rusted and probably unusable for anything beyond being worn as messy protections, there certainly were worse options for a Minion to protect themselves.

He kept walking past the wrecked cars, the broken sheets of tank plating and the woman who was apparently rummaging around a metal barrel looking for something.

He paused, turned his head to the left, and paused again. Sure enough he hadn’t imagined the woman, who was upper body first trying to tear something out of a metal barrel.

“Come on ya stupiddd thing! How can a fan blade be lodged so damn badly in a freaking barrel?”

Izuku paused again, his face remained unchanged before he casually grabbed the barrel, with the woman still remaining in it and lifted it up high before turning it.

“Bwagh! There ya go that only took forever.” The woman who had tumbled out of the barrel seemed to not realize that she was now sitting about a few feet away from where she had started or that someone had lifted her and the barrel up.

She paused, blinking slightly as she examined the fan blade she had been trying to retrieve before she seemed to notice Izuku’s shadow looming over her.

“Oh! Hey! You’re a new face,” she said turning to him, her thick pink shoulder-length dreadlocks shifting slightly. She was wearing a black tank top and a set of equally black overalls as well as a set of goggles.

“Ooooh. Wait a tick. You’re that Overlord guy the little devils have been going on about! At least ya sure look like someone they’d call that.”

Izuku didn’t say anything to that declaration, at least the scouts had been correct. He didn’t need to have much information to discern however that this woman, whoever she was, had something odd about her. She wasn’t entirely human, even if he didn’t use his ‘Evil Presence’ actively she should have at least been intimidated but if she was she showed no hint of it.

Suddenly with the kind of speed he had seen only from his Minions before she was uncomfortably close to him, checking facets of his armor.

“Damn, whoever made this armor of yours knew what they were doin’, this metalwork is absurd even by today's standards, it’s like they’ve been doing nothing except metalworking for centuries….is that freaking Damascus Steel?! Yeah, wow. Geez. This armor man, you gotta let me meet the guy who made it!”

Izuku paused, very visibly disturbed despite his face being completely hidden.

“ _Compose yourself Sire. You are an Overlord, it is unbecoming of you to just let someone walk all over you”_ Gnarl chided him lightly, causing him to regain his bearings in the process.

Izuku very lightly and with the kind of care someone permanently wearing gauntlets could, pushed her slightly away from him.

“Oh, sorry big guy! I get carried away with craftsmanship like that. You’re here for the red devils right? They’ve been saying they’re waiting for a big dude in armor like you,” she said in a casual tone.

“Come on, come on! I know where they are. They’ve been waitin’ for ya for a while ya know? Said somethin’ about the last guy being gone too fast to pick ‘em up.”

She waved him along, something about her was oddly familiar to him but he could not have told you what.

“Name’s Mei Hatsume by the way. Been a support ‘student’ in this place for a short while, though feels more like they’re keeping me here ‘cause they’re afraid I’d start making bombs and crap. Nonsense, things like that are a waste of my time to be honest.”

She laughed heartily as she led him through the corridors of U.A’s Support department and deeper into the complex.

“Gonna be real, I’d be willing to come with ya just to meet the guy who made ya armor. Old metal smithing like that’s been lost to ether or whatever for centuries. Even back before quirks were around people have been trying to reproduce it.”

She laughed again, there was something oddly warming about that laugh, it reminded Izuku of the Minions in a way.

He paused for a while before speaking.

“ **_Your skills would be useful for me. Though for now I would need someone to keep an eye on things here first.”_ **

The tone of his voice felt like ice cubes sliding down her back. It wasn’t just the tone of authority but the tone of familiarity that got to her. Something in his voice felt oddly exciting.

“Well there’s a huge event happening soon! All sorts of heroes are going to be around for it. Would be a good way for you to keep an eye on the upcoming threats wouldn’t it?”

Izuku paused. **_“Your willingness to betray your supposed allies is amusing. Care to explain why?”_ **

“Look big guy. I’m a lady of science first and foremost, if you’re gonna give me a better way of improving the world than they got, I’m taking it.” She shrugged as they and the minions turned the last corner towards what was known as ‘the heating room’.

‘The heating room’ was less of a room and more of a gigantic hall that generated the heat for all of U.A and for the forges used for the support classes to create their inventions from.

The hall itself was in line with a giant boiler room. Pipes of all sorts leading off into the distance.

“ _Sire. Something is wrong, I can feel it through the connection of the spell, there is a lot more magic nearby than we originally thought. Something powerful is being kept from prying eyes in this place,”_ Gnarl’s voice echoed through Izuku’s mind.

* * *

“Oi! It’s the boss man! Looky here boys! The Overlords back!” A boisterous voice called from the rafters. A group of Red Minions were staring down at them with glowing eyes.

Red Minions were slightly different from Browns, they looked still very goblin-like but had red scaly skin and more dragon-like faces instead of the sharpened-toothed goblin-like heads the Browns had.

“It has been a lon’ freaking while Sire! Name’s Slasher. I’m the leader of these lugs. They still be peas for brains but they’re as loyal as any other Minion lot you’ll find. Glad to see there’s still one of ya running about.”

Izuku crooked his head slightly **_“You are a friend of Giblet are you not?”_ **

“Giblet?! That leathery wanker’s still alive? Curse me scales I missed that bastard since I saw ‘im last. Me aim’s gettin’ better though!”

The Reds laughed in unison.

“ **_Get down here. We need to get your hive out of this place. We have no moment to lose.”_ **

The Reds sprung to attention within moments and scampered off to collect their hive.

A Minion hive was a large structure in which the Minions lived, the Brown Minion hive looked like a collection of rocks, whereas the Red Minion hive looked like a structure of volcanoes connected to a large burning egg.

“Got it. Ready boss, we might wanna be getting a move on though. The owner of the place is gonna be noticing the missin’ heat fast,” Slasher reported as he and his compatriots were carrying their hive in their hands. Izuku blessed the Red Minions' heat resistance, otherwise, this would have been a pain.

There was a rumbling sound and the entire school area shook as if something huge had landed somewhere above them.

Hatsume almost fell over and steadied herself backward against Izuku who just stared down at her.

“Anyone tell ya that yer eyes are pretty? If not more people oughta,” She grinned slightly before pushing herself away slightly.

“Look you lot might wanna get the hell outta here, whatever just happened will attract a lot of attention back here and I don’t know about ya but I really wouldn’t wanna be caught like this. Don’t worry about the heating thing, I can come up with some crap. I turned the gravity of this place sideways once, people will believe any crazy story about me,” Mei said cheerfully.

“ _Sire, I found the source of the magic I was sensing earlier. It appears there is an old portal platform on the other side of the hall you are in,”_ Gnarls voice said in Izuku’s head.

Izuku merely pointed the Minions towards a metal circle at the other end of the hall as even more rumblings occurred.

“Oh great! You got a portal to here? That’s bloody perfect ain’t it? That way I can visit you all when I need to and you guys have a way of getting your bearings around the place. There’s some ways outta this place that aren’t on maps just so ya know. So you and your little gremlins can probably get around the place if ya careful.”

Izuku was still slightly disturbed as the Red Minions and the Browns disappeared through the portal. This girl, something was incredibly wrong with her, no human should be this okay with an Overlord and his underlings just walking into a stronghold of heroes and bringing their own home.

“Look just go! I’m crazy enough that no one cares if I’m in here or if I’m standing on the roof singing ‘The Hedgehog Song’ but if you’re found here shits hitting the ceiling ya dig?”

Izuku straightened, raising his left hand, a small glow emitting from the crystal on the back of the ‘Minions Gauntlet’ as a jagged symbol appeared around Hatsume’s collar bone.

She blinked. “...Ya could’ve fucked me first before you marked me.”

Izuku paused, still visibly disturbed. For the first human contact he had in years, she was a little _too_ crazy.

As such he and the Minions returned to the Netherworld Tower. Hatsume would appear sometime later, talking to Giblet and seemingly making friends with everyone. As much as someone as insane as she was could have friends.

A few days passed before Gnarl had found and realized something else, the magic at U.A, it wasn’t from the portal or the Red Hive.

It was the Tower Heart. Somewhere on the grounds of the U.A Hero University, was the source of all magic itself.


	3. Carrying Cards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Whitetiger789, Gotsh0cks and Raef for the editing help!

Within a conference room at UA, the staff of Japan's most influential hero university was regrouping. After the attack at the U.S.J. training facility in which several students and teachers were injured, some worse than others, decisions needed to be made on how to proceed.

“So, will the Sports Festival continue as planned? It seems a bit much to put that onto these kids after what they’ve just been through.” Nemuri Kayama, also known as the Pro-Hero Midnight said, looking both tired and concerned. She had been helping one of the other staff members, a guidance counselor by the name of Ryo Inui, to get the students back in a decent condition.

The students wanted to be heroes, but they were all still barely past their teenage years. Getting attacked and nearly killed by what could be described as a horde of lunatics led by five squawking monstrosities, a ghostly butler, and a man with dead people’s hands all over his body was a rough start into hero studies.

“Yes. As much as the students’ experience pains me, we must show the world at large that we are not backing down from our mission to raise the next generation,” Nezu said as calmly as he could manage. He had seen the entirety of the security footage and listened to quite a few things the students had told him, and compounding this with the information _he_ had seen the same day, the possibilities were frightening.

“However there is a topic I must breach as it can neither wait nor be swept under the rug.As you are all aware, Power Loader has recently reported that part of our heating system has gone cold.” 

“Seems like an oddly mundane thing to bring up in this meeting, Principal, considering the situation,” Cementoss pointed out.

“If it were that simple, I would agree,” Nezu replied with dread in his voice. ”However, it appears that our visitors from this ‘League of Villains’ were not the only intruders we had that day.”

A small holographic projector on the Conference table sprung to life, showing the collective staff of UA what Nezu had seen previously.

“...So you’re telling me that some kind of king and his merry band of goblins walked right onto the premises... to steal from our heating room?” Shouta Aizawa, who at the moment looked akin to a bandaged mummy thanks to his encounter with the League of Villain, asked incredulously.

  
“If only that man was something as banal as a king,” Nezu squeaked. “No, I am afraid that would be too fortunate for us. The man in that recording, if there is still a man under that helmet, is without a doubt the biggest threat to peace, not just within this country, but on this planet.”

Another, far more tense silence, took the room.

“A question, Principal: if that is the case, why was there no alarm about this? We could have intervened and—”

“—gotten yourselves and possibly students killed. Kan, there is such a thing as cutting your losses in our business and I decided that taking care of a few injured parties was the better option than explaining to parents why their children were torn apart by a group of gremlins led by a tyrant that, supposedly, only exists in fairy tales.”

There was another pause. This was a bit much to process.

“So what have these guys stolen, then? From your description, it was probably something incredibly dangerous, kept off our radars to ensure no one knew of it,” Hizashi Yamada reasoned.

“Correct,” Nezu affirmed. “Unfortunately, it is difficult to say what exactly was taken. The object in question has been a mystery to us for years, and is one of the few complete mysteries we have encountered.” A small holographic projection of what appeared to be a volcanic structure of some sort appeared.“The other one is the ‘Vault’, a large underground chamber made out of a completely indestructible material that we have yet to open, let alone discover its exact contents. We only know that something emitting an incredibly powerful energy is inside of it.”

There was another silence before Aizawa spoke up. “Why weren’t we informed of any of this?”

Nezu blinked before answering. “Aizawa, with all due respect, what exactly are you going to do with this information?” Aizawa, for all his outrage, failed to come up with an answer.

“I understand that these are tough times; however, most of this information was and is on a need-to-know basis to ensure that as little panic as possible is caused with it.” The projection changed back to the armored individual.

“That being said, the ‘Overlord’, as these individuals have been named over the generations, most likely had inside help finding his target. He and his underlings also vanished into thin air, making tracking them impossible,” Nezu continued.

“The fastest way to get to the heating room is through the scrapyard the support classes use, though I doubt any of them would have helped him.” Power Loader scratched his chin. He was one of the few people who knew the university’s layout in and out, having helped build most of it.

Aizawa raised an eyebrow. “You mean to tell me that you think that your protégé Hatsume wouldn’t be crazy enough to help an equally crazy person? That girl turned the gravity of the cafeteria sideways for two days.“ He shuddered as he recalled that dreadful experience.

“I think that is actually a point against the possibility that she could help this ‘Overlord.’ If he truly is as dangerous as Nezu tells us, then he wouldn’t be willing to take someone as crazy as Hatsume. Nobody is that insane,” Kayama said, stifling a laugh.

* * *

What most people living on the surface of the Earth did not realize was that the secret to dealing with crazy people was not working against or around the insanity, but with it. Insanity, as Izuku had learned from the Minions, was a way of seeing things from a perspective that only existed as long as you stopped trying to force logic into everything.

So it was perfectly acceptable for him to let Mei Hatsume run about the place together with Giblet to fix and try to improve the forge. 

As unsettling and weirdly inquiring as she was, she seemed to have her head in the right mindset to work with the Minions for an extended period of time.

“ **OI!** Giblet! Why are we puttin’ this ramp up here? Tha’s inefficient!” Hatsume called from the upper most part of the Life Force Forge, a special kind of Forge used to imbue normal weapon and armor forging with the Life Force of Minions.

“Well it ain’t gonna be fun for the boys to jump in from a frakking stone slab, now is it?” Giblet yelled right back from where he was standing with one of his other Minion apprentices, looking over the blueprints Mei had adjusted.

“I mean, I don’t know? Figured we could just put a trap door here. Would make for a right laugh, that,” Mei reasoned.

There was a small pause in which the two Brown Minions on the ground floor paused before almost falling over in laughter. “...Pffharhaharh ya know whot? That’s bleeding brilliant, how come I never thought of tha’?”

Izuku just wished that Hatsume would stop talking like a Minion herself. As amusing as it was, it had gotten unsettling how easily she fit into the place.

Izuku had come down to the Forge to see how they were faring. He looked around the place. The trio had done a rotten-well job on the place.

He remembered how the Forge had looked when he first got to see it. He had been surprised that it worked at all, even as it had been used to create perfectly fitted armor for him years ago.

Hatsume was the only one in the position to see him and, despite standing several stories below all of them, she had little issue seeing him perfectly. This was because her quirk **[Zoom]** allowed her to get a close look even from where she was standing.

“Fuhuhuhuck me jogging, and here I thought most of your size was the armor! You look like a brick house even without it O—” Mei couldn’t entirely finish her sentence before Izuku had leaped from the ground level of the Forge all the way up to her position with barely any effort.

“ ** _I_ _ordered you to bring me information from above, Hatsume. For your sake, you better convince me that you were not a waste of my time.”_ **Izuku’s voice sent shivers down her spine, this time not in the way she enjoyed.

She had realized since her first meeting with him that there was a fine line between irritating an Overlord and drawing his ire. Right now, the situation was not helped by the fact that he was not wearing most of the armor he usually wore, even in the Netherworld Tower. He was bare chested and not wearing a helmet, his green-black hair flowing like flames in a non-existent wind. His face was covered in an unnatural shadow, which she guessed was some kind of magic his Overlord-ship granted him.

He was still wearing his armor from the waist down, but she could tell this was his ‘casual evenings’ attire. She really had trouble keeping her eyes off his incredibly chiseled physique which, thanks to his gray skin, literally looked like he could have been some kind of statue.

“Well boss, remember that rumbling we heard in the heating room?” Mei was doing her damned best to not ogle him, but found her eyes darting down from his face mid-sentence. “W-Well it turns out that was one of the guys that attacked the University—or well, not ‘guys;’ it was some kind of weird living weapon thing, at least that’s what the hero course students have been saying it is,” she continued, still struggling with both her words and her concentration. “Whatever those things are, there were five that attacked the University together with a whole bunch a villains. From what the hero course students have been going on about, those things nearly killed a teacher. Apparently, the villains just left them behind when they bailed. The police are still keeping 'em somewhere before moving them to Tartarus,” she finished, again trying to keep her focus on his face and failing. 

Izuku crooked his head slightly. **_“Tartarus? What does an ancient mythological underworld have to do with genetic super weapons?”_ **he asked, sounding honestly confused.

“Oh! Right. I forgot you haven’t been topside much.” Mei straightened herself a bit, trying to regain her bearings. ”It’s the name of a high security jail. Usually for villains who are too dangerous to keep around or too evil for the death penalty,” she explained.

Izuku thought about this for a bit. It would be difficult to retrieve these ‘living weapons’ from a place like that, so if he wanted to steal them, they would need some preparations.

He suddenly picked her up and jumped back down to the front of the forge.

“Ya really gotta start talkin’ more boss… or at least warn me when ya do somethin’ crazy,” Mei said in a half-indignant, half-joking tone as he put her down.

“ ** _Giblet. We need a way to transport objects to the Netherworld that is not a huge landmark like the gates. Find a way to transport them here, some kind of marker or something we can place on the object,”_ ** Izuku stated in his usual authoritative tone, barely acknowledging Mei’s complaint.

Giblet stood to attention. “How fast ye be needin’ that sire?” he croaked.

Izuku just glared at him.

“’Aight, as fast as possible, ‘course!” Giblet saluted and got to making a blueprint of something.

Izuku started walking off, Mei didn’t need to be told that she was to follow him. There was something about an Overlord that made you understand what they wanted without being told much.

“Ya know, I’m not sure what it is, but Giblet reminds me of my granpa in a way. Not jus’ the inventions and the forge mind; my entire family has a thin’ for metal workin’. Somethin’ about him feels... familiar,” Mei said looking lost in thought for a moment before shrugging. “Eh. Probably just coincidence.”

As the two humans left the forge area within the Netherworld Tower, the two Brown Minions got to work and to talking.

“I’m tellin’ ya, Gubbin, somethin’ ‘bout that dame’s work ‘s familiar and I canna tell ya what,” Giblet grumbled.

“Ya wot? It’s metal work, ya seen it for centuries,” Gubbin muttered.

“Not that ya gerbil! The stayle! Somethin’s weird ‘bout it,” Giblet snapped angrily.

Gubbin started dragging some of the automating mechanisms that they had been working on into place.

“...Say. This gear onna yours?” Gubbin questioned holding up a bronze gear curiously.

“Nah, she made it,” Giblet said, crooking his head to the side slightly.

“Weird. Could’ve sworn you make ‘em the same way,” Gubbin said before shrugging and continuing with his work.

* * *

Izuku and Mei, meanwhile, had returned to the Throne Room.

Mei had seen the Throne Room a lot recently; she figured, however, it could use some severe upgrading. Maybe the Overlord would allow her to turn it into a high-tech Throne Room someday.

“ ** _Slasher!”_ ** Izuku bellowed. **_“Take some of the Reds. You will be scouting out the area around the place we found you.”_ **

Izuku had taken his usual commanding position, slouching on his throne as an evil Overlord should. Gnarl had insisted on giving him lessons in slouching, and Izuku had come to find it oddly soothing to do after a while.

“ ** _Search the area for something that looks human, but dumber,”_ ** Izuku commanded. He figured that if these things were made by _villains,_ they would somehow manage to look even more idiotic than the heroes themselves.

“Eeh. Was ‘bout to tell ya that ain’t narrowin’ it down boss, but I think the boys got ya idea.” Slasher chuckled as he turned to the rest of the Red Minions. “Aight’ boys! Let’s go find us some humans that ain’t using their brains despite havin’ em.”

With that, the Reds ran off. Izuku figured that since they had been on UA grounds for a long time, they would have the best chances to find these creatures without drawing too much attention. Or, at least, to not get caught instantly.

“Sire? If I may ask: What exactly do you hope to gain from these creatures? The young lady’s description did not sound particularly impressive.” Gnarl tried his best to sound just dismissive enough that his lord might reconsider wasting his time with this endeavor rather than focusing on the Tower Heart.

“ ** _Gnarl? What is the biggest advantage the heroes have over us?”_ **Izuku asked, his tone like a freezing wind.

Gnarl paused at this question, pondering for a minute.

“ ** _The answer, Gnarl, is personal power. Defeating them and dominating them will only make them martyrs, emboldening their fanatic followers further. I must crush their spirits first and their followers will crumble alongside them.”_ ** As he spoke Izuku made some grandiose looking gesture as if he was trying to crush something invisible. Entirely unnecessary, but as Gnarl had taught him, it was a tradition among Overlords. **_“These creatures, nameless and disposable, are the best tools to achieve just that.”_ **

Gnarl grinned. He knew his lord had a plan with this course of action. No Overlord relied on brute force alone. Asking questions like this was his way of testing the current Overlord’s intentions as a way to see if they had started to make choices out of vanity.

Mei noticed the Overlord's understanding of how most of the heroes appeared to work. She wondered if he had been wronged by heroes before.

In Izuku’s mind, this decision was pragmatism, plain and simple. Why risk his forces when he could easily risk someone else's? These weapons were the perfect fodder; if they turned into a liability, they could easily be disposed of. Perhaps they could also procure some more resources, which was always a welcome addition.

“ ** _For now, our guest and I shall depart for a short while. We have things that need to be discussed.”_ ** Izuku grinned at Gnarls' visible confusion at this declaration.

* * *

Returning to the surface was always a strange experience to Izuku; no matter how many times he had gone back up, it just never felt like he remembered it. Perhaps it had something to do with staying in the bowels of the earth for so long, or perhaps it was just that it never really was his ‘home’.

The Minions had long ago found a portal ring somewhere in a dark alley of Musutafu, but Izuku hadn’t used it much. Even in his small trips back, there just really wasn’t a reason to.

They walked out of the alley and into the semi-busy walkways. Izuku hadn’t bothered to hide his normal self in any fashion. Well, beyond the face-obscuring darkness, anyway. 

Mei, meanwhile, also seemed uncomfortable being here; at least, Izuku had this impression, as her eyes kept darting from person to person around them.

“Ya know, if ya could bother to wear something more modern than those metal pants, ya probably would fit in,” she grumbled. While he was nice to ogle, his whole appearance basically screamed VILLAIN in capital letters.

“ ** _Perhaps it would also work if you did not draw attention to it,”_ ** he said after a while, not even acknowledging the looks people shot his way.

The air around them felt tense. It wasn’t from their conversation or even how they somewhat stood out. Something in the air was just wrong.

Izuku, for his part, did not notice anything amiss aside from quite a bit of sound from a crowd standing around this street.

“ ** _…..Noisy,”_ ** Izuku growled.

Mei could have sworn she had heard something incredibly loud for a moment, but then it was gone and she and the Overlord kept walking along the sidewalk.

* * *

There had been a lot of Villain attacks in the past five years.

You could not deny it to be so. Ever since All Might vanished alongside his hated rival All For One, people had just been thrown into a nightmarish frenzy. There seemed to be no end to it.

Kamui Woods thought of this as he arrived at another villain attack; some guy with a slime-body quirk had taken someone hostage.

Kamui admitted to himself that he was tired. He couldn’t keep fighting; he hadn’t had time to sleep for at least half a week now. He was almost ready to throw in the towel himself, just kill this slime-sludge bastard and die alongside him.

Then, without so much as a word, two people seemingly wandered straight into the hostage situation and without as much as an acknowledgment from either of these people the entire hostage situation just... ended.

He didn’t get to see what the wall of a man had done to the slime-based villain, but whatever it was made it so that the entire street was painted in green goop as the two hostages first coughed up the rest of the slime that had been forced down their throats before staring after their uninterested savior.

“ **DO NOT WORRY for I am AGHGH...”** The size-changing hero Mt. Lady barged around the corner, trying to make an entrance, and slipped on slime, falling on her enhanced ass as she stared into the sludge covered street.

“What the fuck happened here?” she asked, staring at the goop covered street.

“...Would you believe me if I told you that someone as strong as All Might came through?” Kamui replied, not even turning to look at her.

“No!” came her incredulous reply. 

“Then why even bother with the question?” Kamui asked, still not even looking her way.

He paused, looking up and down the street. Every bit of pitted floor tile, every pebble on the ground, every window within its frame had been moved and bent as if hit by an earthquake.

Normal procedure demanded he apprehend the vigilante that had interrupted the work of professional heroes. Sanity demanded that he would never cross paths with that person, no matter how much he was paid.

* * *

The air was a lot cleaner around the area Izuku had led Mei to. It was a decent part away from the streets and the people around and reminded one of a small forest a lot of the younger kids would play in.

At least, that was how Izuku remembered the place. These days it was a landfill; what wasn’t covered in cement was a cragged, dry mess of dirt and pebbles.

He hated this scene. Not even his memories were left untarnished by society.

He picked up a bit of dirt and sadly watched it flow away into sand. Nothing was worth defending anymore, was it?

“Ya used to be here a lot huh? I can tell; we all got places like this. It’s gone to crap, hasn’t it? Lotta things have, imma be honest. Can’t walk down a fuckin’ street anymore these days without some bastard trying to kill someone. It’s all been such a fuckin’ mess, especially recently,” Mei chimed in with a sad tone in her voice.

Mei looked sadly at the landfill; she imagined how it could have looked like years ago.

Izuku laughed. It wasn’t a natural laugh, but rather a hollow facsimile of one. “ **_Would you like to see it? How I remember it?”_ ** His solemn tone made it clear that even what he remembered was not entirely pleasant.

“Sure,” she hummed, oddly excited.

A small spark left his fingers and suddenly the entire area seemingly transformed around them, the dried out, dusty area changed before her eyes into a lush forest, a small river cutting through it all.

The only thing that hinted at it being an illusion was the fact that there was a purple haze-like aura around the edges of everything.

“ ** _This is where it all began...”_ **

Mei watched as the shades of two children ran past them; they looked no older than four.

Then, one of them spun around on their heels and hit the other in the face with what she guessed was some kind explosion.

**_“...and ended.”_ **

She saw the same kind of scene repeating, though she could spot differences. With each iteration the kids looked older but the scene still played out the same way, though there were other shades around them. Never once, it seemed, did the smaller shade have anyone on its side.

“ ** _You ever wonder what caused people to become like they are today? It all started with some people getting quirks—”_ ** He motioned to the slightly larger boy's shade. “— **_and some who did not.”_ **

He motioned to the other shade as the same scene played out again and again: The smaller shade being hit by what looked like an explosion and then being left all by itself while the rest walked off.

“So that was you, was it?” Mei asked in the most disappointed tone she could manage. “That’s your reason for doing alla this? Some kids being bastards and ya—”

He turned his head towards her. He didn’t even need to narrow his eyes at her for her to realize just how much that choice of words had been a bad idea. “ **_No.”_ **If words could have literal weight, she felt just that word alone would have crushed her back.

“ ** _This world is a mockery of what it could be, nothing more than a monument to the failures of those living on it.”_ **Izuku’s voice did not raise or show any change in infection, but to her it felt like he was louder than anything she ever heard.

The shades faded and the scenery crumbled back into the landfill like area it now was.

A wave of blackness slowly rose behind him. She could see cities and citadels made of black stone in that blackness.

“ ** _For all this drivel about heroism and villainy, nothing has changed. You yourself should know this. After all, what use has your talent been given other than to enrich fools in costumes?”_ **He spat the last few words as if they were almost too disgusting to bear.

She fell into silence for a while, his words hit her harder than she would have liked to admit. She thought back; ever since she had started working on her ‘babies,’ she really hadn’t thought much about it, but things had really gone to hell for Japan recently. Another thought came to her mind, it had been a rather sad and dark one.

UA, and most people she knew, really, more so tolerated her than appreciated her. She could think of at least some others that faced the same problem. People with mutation quirks like hers faced a lot of ridicule and uncomfortable looks; even transformation quirk users didn’t seem to treat them as equals, despite the similar application of their powers.

Yet here _he_ was, claiming that he would change this world, to give her and undoubtedly a lot of others the means to make it a better, if darker, place.

“Ya know, I couldn’t tell ya why, but for some reason I can see ya actually managing that insane goal of yours. I want to help, and I hav’ a few ideas on how I can. I’m also pretty sure that I know some folks who’d join up,” she said calmly after a pause to calm down.

There was something about her smile that made his mind reel a little. It wasn’t an average playful smile, it was the kind of confident smile that made it clear that she completely trusted him.

A small motion of his left hand later and the darkness around his face vanished, allowing her to see his face for the first time. Emerald eyes met amber.

Love at first sight was a foolish concept. Mei knew this and had known it to be so for quite a long time, yet here she was throwing caution and restraint to the wind.

She felt as if pins and needles were trailing up and down her body. He had gently embraced her, leaving his hands on her back. Mei was perfectly aware that a kiss had no means to cause a lightning storm to erupt from the perfectly clear sky, but she was certain it felt like it had just done that.

“That was... wow,” she eventually breathed after they parted. While the Overlord didn’t say anything, the look on his face told her that the feeling was mutual.

“We never got each other's names,” she eventually said as they were walking back through the streets. The magic darkness over his face had returned a few seconds after they started heading back. “I’m Mei Hatsume.” She figured if he was not going to start, she might as well.

“ ** _I used to be called Izuku Midoriya... though that boy vanished a long time ago... to the world, I will be the Overlord. To you? Izuku will do.”_ **Again his tone didn’t show any inflection or change, sounding as sinister and brooding as it always did.

“Ya know… for all your ‘evil’ talk... even your name sounds like the name of a hero to me,” she giggled slightly.

He stared at her for a second; that was the last thing he ever expected someone to say.

None of it worth thinking about. He had made his choice, he knew his path. 

If he needed to be evil, he would be. The world was broken, and someone needed to find a way to fix it.

Because it was exactly as Gnarl told him: Evil _always_ finds a way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 notes:  
> The chapter title is a reference to the trope "Card Carrying Villain"  
> referring to the type of villain who knows and embraces their evil deeds, in many cases openly admitting that they're evil.
> 
> Izuku's hidden face is meant to invoke the comic "The Darkness" in which the (also evil) protagonist is often  
> shown with a shadowed face. It also invokes the actual Overlord games, where the face of the player characters are never shown.


	4. The stars, near yet far

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Whitetiger789 for the beta read!
> 
> It has been a while hasn't it? I'll try to return to form and update more of my various stories.  
> I do want to apologize for the lack of keeping you all informed but life has been keeping me occupied for a long while.  
> As it stands I hope to write more and get this story and the others still open on my list to proceed.

Inko Midoriya had gotten used to a lot of things in the years she had spent under the crust of the Earth.

The Minions treated her like the mother they could never have, and Izuku treated her like she was one of the most invaluable people alive.

Gnarl the Minion Master acted as if she was expandable though over the years she had come to understand that he treated everyone, save for the Overlord, this way.

She was always asked for her input on important matters, even if her son didn't always know if she could be of help with any given situation he would still ask for her opinion.

It had surprised her to no end when Izuku asked her about how to approach women. It was an odd subject to breach especially considering his end goal.

“You cannot force things of this kind to happen. They either occur naturally or not at all.” was her only reply on the subject.

Gnarl had scoffed at such a statement, as a Minion who had served every Overlord there ever was, he viewed the notion of an Overlord not getting what they wanted as absurd.

Inko figured it was part of the nature of Minions to disregard the possibility that their Overlord could be denied something. They were seemingly born or made for the purpose of serving an Overlord, the concept that their Overlord could be wrong or not have a plan just did not exist in their world.

* * *

  
Inko had taken a lot of trips to the surface compared to Izuku himself. Part of it was to gather information, another part was admittedly morbid curiosity.

She did not need to be told that the world was a mess and getting worse by the hour, even her visit more than ten years ago had shown her that much.

These days she only went up to the surface to remind herself that Izuku’s goal was the right thing to follow. Well given the value of ‘right’.

On her way out of the Netherworld Tower she caught part of a conversation Izuku was having with their newest arrival in the tower: Mei Hatsume.

“ **_This Sports Festival... What can you tell me of it?”_ ** Inko did not need to even see Izuku to know he was slouching on the throne as he usually was when these kinds of conversations happened. She had told Gnarl to remind Izuku to stop doing it. She would need to have words with that old Gremlin.

“Well, calling it a ‘Sports Festival’ is not quite accurate. Calling it a competition for future heroes to show their abilities off is more fitting.” Inko hadn’t heard Hatsume speak much, well not this clearly anyway. She remembered the girl as someone you would imagine owning a junk shop in both appearance and demeanor but she sounded almost regal now.

“ **_A competition to sell their powers to the highest bidder. What an opportune moment to show them that the power they have is meaningless.”_ **Inko could almost hear the grin form on Izuku’s face, as she knew he had been hoping for a suitably dramatic moment to openly engage the heroes.

“Patience, beloved.” Inko froze on the spot hearing that. She felt a pang of pride, since Izuku had somehow managed to get himself a girl within mere days of knowing her. “If we rush this now, you will be left out in the open among hundreds of heroes, you should not worry yourself with grunt work like that. There are ways we can deal with that.”

After a second of pause she figured to leave them to their discussion, though she made note to some day thank Hatsume for at least trying to temper her son's ambitions when she herself could not do so.

* * *

  
Musutafu, no matter how many times Inko came back to the surface, it always felt filthier than it had been when she left it.

It felt to her as if someone had poisoned the very ground the city stood on, as if something just naturally made people more reckless or even downright insane.

One thing she had come across that had not been there before she and Izuku had gone underground years ago: Billboard charts.

While there had been a big announcement of the hero rankings every year, it was a one-off occurrence back then. Now? Digital Billboards with the Hero rankings were everywhere. _Everywhere._

You could walk down a street and find enough on either side of the street that there was always one view. She noticed, to her curiosity, that All Might was still ranked 1st. Now Inko admitted she hadn’t completely kept up with everything but she could have sworn the man had disappeared five years ago.

She had stopped at one of the larger ones, that showed little mugshots of the heroes besides their names and took a picture.

“Something caught your eye, miss?” A scratchy, tired sounding voice asked her.

Standing next to her, completely escaping her notice until now, was a gaunt, skeletal looking man with blond hair that looked like someone had forced his finger into an electrical socket with how unkempt and almost straw-like it looked.

“To be honest, yes. I was wondering why _he_ is still up there.” Inko said motioning to the top of the board.

The man paused crooking his head to the side. “Endeavor? Yeah I can see why you would wonder about him. Guy’s gotten pretty aggressive recently.”

Inko rolled her eyes. “I was referring to All Might, he’s been gone for over five years. No one has seen the man in a long time.” There was an odd pause in which several people stopped to look at the two of them, only to keep walking, somewhat hastily, at Inko’s glare.

“Oh that? They’ve kept All Might up there as inspiration material basically.” The blond man shrugged before continuing.

“Sounds like a decent motivator don’t you think? They’re saying ‘Look at this man! He was so amazing that even five years after he died we think will always be the greatest.’” The blond man said with a grandiose gesture of his hand, which eerily reminded Inko of some of the motions Izuku did.

“No.” Inko said after a while, in a flat tone that seemed to drain all of the air and color out of the man. “No. Quite honestly that sounds horrible, they are telling these people that no matter what they do they can never reach a man who has already died. For all they know nothing they ever do would be enough.”

Now Inko knew something was up, because the entire area felt a lot more cold and hostile. For her it did not mean a lot, she had been around Izuku for years. This feeling was a Thursday evening to her, especially on the weeks Quaver served his ‘traditional meatloaf’.

“Tch. You can glare all you want. You wish to honor him? Be better than he was instead of moving the goalposts.” Inko growled at the small crowd forming around them. She remembered why Izuku didn’t come up much to the surface aside from training. He had said something about the atmosphere.

“ **_Those fools would worship a dead man before they admit that they are scared. For them, believing that no one can surpass ‘him’ is all they have. They have no aspirations, no dreams, no goals. No. Future. That up there, mother? It does not feel like living to me. It feels like surviving.”_ **He had told her once.

With nary a glance spared she walked away from the scene. She didn’t fear any of them, cowards and fools were the least of her worries.

* * *

  
Wandering Musutafu she could tell that the overall feeling of her once beloved hometown had changed to the point that she barely even recognized it.

Wherever she went it was the same story, supposed ‘Professional Heroes’, fighting more for fame and because of obligation rather than because they wanted to do something good. If the heroes weren’t tired of trying to pretend to care they were posing for photos rather than ensuring the villains didn’t get back up.

If you would call some of them ‘Villains’ in the first place. Was a mere thief really worth seven ‘Professional Heroes’ chasing after him? Especially if the heroes involved were far more destructive than the thief was?

However she held her tongue for now, today was not the time for her to cause too much of a scene or drag attention to herself, in fact she was certain her little outburst earlier already put more eyes on her than necessary.

No today her task was to simply observe and report back to the Netherworld Tower. Hatsume had mentioned that the ‘Hero Course’ students of U.A University were working together with several heroes for ‘work studies’. Which Hatsume had stated was code for ‘find and beat up crooks, doesn’t matter if they actually did anything’.

So far she had only caught a few glimpses of younger heroes but none were all that different from their older counterparts, though she wondered who designed those costumes as many of them seemed less about practicality and more about showing as much of their physiques as possible.

She was about to head back when a huge shock wave caused everything to shake, an explosion about a street away from where she was had seemingly torn up a building.

* * *

  
“What the hell Bakubro?! Are you crazy? There’s civilians everywhere!” Inko could hear a boisterous voice chide someone as she approached the scene of the explosion.

“Who gives a shit?! The building was empty except for that guy and we know it!” an angry voice responded.

The remains of a building, barely held upright by a few young heroes were precariously close to falling. A huge chunk of the building had been annihilated by an explosion coming rather obviously from inside the building itself.

“That’s not his point you jerk! You could have killed someone outside of the building with the debris!” A young woman’s voice cut in.

“Well I didn’t! Are you going to stand around or help me do our job or what Roundface?” The voice growled.

“We were _trying to do_ our job Bakugo. We were not to engage, we were to secure the area, evacuate the civilians and leave the fighting to the Pro’s we are with, which we were doing until _you_ decided to charge ahead. Again.” A calm if annoyed voice said with a slight edge in its tone.

“That aside, chances are good you missed.” A brooding sounding voice mused.

“ **YOUR AIM’S WORSE THAN MY BROS CHOICE OF SOCKS.”** A strangely reverberating and childish sounding voice mocked.

“ **GAH”** the childish voice yelped.

“You do not mock those. Kyoka gave them to us.” the brooding voice chided.

“ **SORRY I FORGOT.”** the childish voice squeaked.

* * *

  
Before Inko could make out much more of the scene in front of her, someone with a burnt and torn looking hoodie ran past the group of young heroes and right into her, trying and failing to get around her in time.

“Uff. S-Sorry M-Miss.” the young boy froze just from the look in Inko’s eyes. The kid, Inko guessed, was maybe fourteen or fifteen.

The boy didn’t need to know her name, or know what she did for a living to recognize two things with absolute clarity:

The first was that if there was such a thing as ‘The safest place on earth’ it was within her sight or field of influence. The second was that no matter who you were, crossing her was the worst and possibly last decision you ever made.

From the loud explosion near the group of young heroes he guessed someone was making that type of decision right now.

* * *

  
The young hero, a blond with rather piercing red eyes, came rocketing towards them with the kind of aim one expected a rocket to have, only to veer bizarrely off-course and crashed to the ground, to the young hero's own confusion.

“….and who might you be, young man?” Inko asked with an indifferent tone, hiding almost perfectly that she recognized exactly who the blond hero was. There weren’t many kids with blond hair and red eyes, even in these times someone like him stood out, if not as much.

Katsuki Bakugo. Inko could have sworn he had barely aged, despite her seeing him last when he was barely four she could always see that strange, almost animal-like hostility in him. He had certainly grown, tall, thin and with a decently toned physique, which his frankly absurd ‘hero costume’ showed off.

The explosion shaped ‘mask’, which was perfectly useless at hiding his identity if you ever met him in civilian situations, was only the smallest offense to the senses his outfit had.

Practicality had apparently made way for insanity for young heroes these days, a dark-green sleeveless shirt covered in ammo belts, two grenade shaped gauntlets, one of which had what looked like a tank turret attached to one end, heavy armored looking boots. She honestly wondered if he stumbled through an arms dealers warehouse halfway through getting dressed each day.

“Get out of the way lady! That villain’s mine!” The blond yelled at her at full volume. She was surprised a bit that he didn’t recognize her at all, though it was only to her fortune that it was so.

“Villain?” she glanced at the kid who was now hiding behind her. “All I see is a scared young man being chased around by someone who just destroyed part of a building and who spends his time yelling at people.” Her tone didn’t change, she knew that technically she was not to draw attention to herself but she figured she might as well have some fun.

“Keh. I said get out of the way.” the blond boy growled through clenched teeth. Inko wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t particularly pleased by someone disobeying his usual method of getting what he wanted.

“Well considering that you call him a villain I do believe you are required to state what his charge is.” There was a pause that lasted just long enough for the young blond hero to realize that Inko was a lot more dangerous than he thought.

“You _do_ have a reason to claim that he is a villain, correct? Or does the profession of ‘Professional Hero’ empower you to just decide these things now?” There was no venom in her voice, barely any inflection at all really but something told the young hero that she could kill him at a glance.

The rest of the troop of young heroes had finally made their way to the scene.

“I apologize for our ally’s incredible lack of decorum, but I must ask you to step away from our suspect this instant.” the tallest, completely covered in what could be described in ‘knight armor but stylized like a sports car’ armor said in a flat tone that made him closer to sounding emotionally dead than professional.

“As our friend has told you, madam please. Step away.” A slightly shorter young man with a black bird head and a strange, shadowy bird ghost thing added.

Inko feigned care for their words. “Hm, is that so? Do tell me: What exactly is he being suspected of? Seeing as your friend does not know or care what exactly his charge is why do you expect me to take your word if I can not take his?”

Again a strange feeling of dread overcame the heroes present, whoever this woman was she did not even need to make a threat to put a frightening edge into her voice that stopped them cold.

One dreadful, dark, night, Inko would have to thank Gnarl, possibly at his deathbed, for teaching her how to be an ‘Adviser of Evil’.

Aside from a training regiment that made her dangerous in her own right she had also learned one valuable skill from it: Bluffing. She knew exactly that she had no leg to stand on and yet here these young heroes were trying and failing to make her budge.

For as much as she hated that old bat, she couldn’t help but be endlessly thankful for now.

“Miss,” the young girl of this group, in what to Inko looked like a space suit, began, trying and failing to bring herself to sound compassionate instead of tired of this. “I know how this looks but you have to trust us and let us do our job.”

Inko laughed in a hollow tone. “Young lady you have not the slightest idea of _‘how this looks’_. To me this looks like a bunch of hooligans chasing a scared civilian around for no reason. As for trusting you to do your job, well your friend just hurtled towards me and if it weren’t for his own incompetence I would have likely been injured. Perhaps you would like to have a second draft for the arguments in your favor?”

To her surprise they seemed to have none. “Hmph. I would claim to be surprised with you kids but I really am not.” A calm but audibly disappointed voice said.

Approaching from behind Inko were two people, one she recognized and one she did not. A man who seemed to have a mutation quirk that turned him into a large humanoid dog and the gaunt blond man from earlier stood there, staring at the scene.

This caused the young man behind Inko to cling to her scared. It was amusing to her, despite his age he was still very much a mere boy.

“We appear to keep running into each other today, lady.” the blond, gaunt man said, trying to be smooth. “We do not, you just keep turning up wherever I am headed.” she scoffed, making him deflate almost audibly.

“I apologize for these youngsters miss,” the large dog-man growled, visibly agitated. “They seemed to **NOT READ THEIR DAMNED MISSION STATEMENTS LIKE THEY WERE TOLD TO!** ” he suddenly shouted, making the young heroes cringe as if someone had just smashed heavy books on their heads.

He kept ranting for a while, in which time Inko decided to figure out what this was all about. “So? Would you care to tell me why this young man is being chased like a criminal?” She interrupted the man's rant.

“Well... a poison quirk has incapacitated several people and in turn caused several hospitalizations.” the dog man said after regaining his composure. The lady impressed him quite a bit, he had trouble keeping the hero course students in line but she seemed to do it almost instinctively.

“I ca-an’t contr-rol my quirk. It-It releases gas an-nd if I ke-ep it in fo-or too long it st-starts killing me.” the boy finally stammered out.

“OH FUCK YOU! NO ONE WOULD FUCKING DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT UNINTENTIONALLY!” the blond, red-eyed hero in training yelled, causing the young man to shrink in on himself.

“So you admit that you intended to destroy an entire building then? How noble of you.” Inko’s cold voice brought his yelling to screeching halt.

“Perhaps people would have more _faith_ and _trust_ into heroes if you weren’t so willing to immediately jump to the worst possible conclusion. Your quirks harm you if you use them wrong as well don’t they? So why is the case not made for people like him?” Inko asked, knowing that again she would be met with no satisfactory answer.

“W-Well miss we can’t just ignore what has happened. He has used his quirk without authori-” the ‘sports-car knight’ began, Inko rolled her eyes. “Oh spare me the theatrics. Or do you mean to tell me your friend here will receive more than a scolding from his teachers for vaporizing half a building without authorization?” she was met with another dead drop of a pause.

Inko rolled her eyes and reached out her hand to the young man. “Come. We’re leaving.” The boy readily accepted her hand and they started walking off. “HEY YOU CAN’T JUST-”

“Do you have any proof that he did anything wrong? Any intended harm? Anything at all that makes it clear that he committed any wrongdoing? Or for that matter that it was him who caused these supposed hospitalizations?” She cut the interrupting party off.

Another long pause filled the air. “So you mean to tell me then,” Inko said as she stopped in her tracks, almost audibly furious. “that this entire chase was based on hearsay and some vague search for a guilty party? Really? I must say it’s quite surprising that you expect people to just roll over and do whatever you say.” Inko sighed slightly before shaking her head.

With that and just a single glance back the two of them walked off without further interruptions.

Inko could have sworn she saw something in the brown haired girls eyes, a spark. Not the same spark Gnarl had once seen in her son but rather the potential of an actual hero. She needed to report back to Izuku, if only for that fact.

* * *

  
“I must say, you are turning out to be quite a group of disappointments. Save for young Bakugo perhaps. No initiative, let alone drive to do the right thing.” the gaunt man spoke as he watched the two leave.

He waited a bit until Hound Dog was out of hearing range. “There’s nothing we can do now, attacking that woman would draw a lot more attention since we don’t have a damn reason to think she is being searched for and with your lack of action you led Hound Dog right here and that man always records _everything_ that happens on missions.” He sighed, what was he going to do with these kids? He had spent weeks getting them easy stuff like this and they still screwed it up.

“Sir with all respect she had a point, we had nothing on that kid! We didn’t even know if he did anything wrong at all.” the brown haired girl, whose hero name was Uravity, tried to argue.

“Young Uraraka. We cannot let our emotions get in the way of the law, you were sent here to help apprehend a criminal and for all it matters that boy could have been it.” His tone was strange to the majority of the young heroes present, as if there was something very wrong with his voice. None of them could tell what it was but something felt unsettling about it.

Not to mention that the more logically thinking ones realized that he was contradicting himself. So they were supposed to break the law to enforce it? That didn’t make any sense. In fact, many things he had told them at the start of the school year didn’t add up with things he told them later and he would tell them eventually.

“Whatever the case may be, now we have to deal with the fallout of this situation, not getting around or out of that now.” He suddenly said, his voice seemingly normalizing as he cheerfully led them back to the building Bakugo had destroyed.

Katsuki Bakugo however froze for a moment. That woman, he knew he had seen her before. He couldn’t tell where but he just knew that he had met her before.

“Keep up young Bakugo. Don’t make me regret praising you boy.” he was ripped from his thoughts by the voice of his teacher and stomped after the rest.

* * *

  
The air crackled in the Netherworld Tower when Inko returned home, she had brought along the young man she had saved from an untimely incarceration with her. His name, as she found out, was Takeshi Bushijima, an orphaned young man whose quirk made it almost impossible to stay with anyone.

His quirk **[Poison Gas]** created just that, a poisonous gas that, if not released, harmed not just those around him but himself as well. She scowled at hearing about it, those ‘heroes’ who had gone after him would have thrown him in jail or even killed him without ever finding out that it wasn’t possible for him to safely get rid of that gas on his own.

She doubted that, with exception to the brown haired girl, any of them would have given him the benefit of the doubt, especially after he ran away from them minutes before. Whatever had happened to real heroes she wondered, people who actually cared for people's lives no matter who they were.

“Come. I am certain if we explain the situation you will be just as welcome to stay here as I have been for all these years.” Inko said and took his hand. Of course the boy was nervous, this would be the first civilian that would be brought in front of the new Overlord in quite some time.

* * *

  
They entered the great hall of the Netherworld Tower and Inko could almost immediately tell something was off. Purple and Black glittering particles hung in the air around the ceiling and an unnatural shadow hung over the newly placed lamps.

Originally Izuku had torches and braziers everywhere but if modernity had brought anything to the Netherworld it was decent lighting. That and commodities like running water and electricity, which had been a pain to get the Minions to even comprehend much less use.

“ **_Ah. Mother. You have returned and I see you are not alone.”_ ** Izuku slouched on the throne, as he always did when someone not from the tower was present. It had been called ‘bad Overlord-etiquette’ by Gnarl. An Overlord needed to be seen as the superior to everyone they met, be it on the battlefield or in their own realm.

“Indeed.” Inko said bowing slightly, it was more to play along than because she was actually required to. She knew the question of why the entire Netherworld Tower looked gloomy would have to be answered when Takeshi was not present.

“This young man was chased around by heroes without much of a reason. I came across him and figured since he appears to not have a home of his own that he could be sheltered here, at least for a while.” Inko said trying to make this sound like something Izuku could excuse while still keeping his appearance as an Overlord intact.

Izuku paused, before rising from his throne in the sort of slow, lumbering fashion that implied the usual theatrical manipulation an Overlord was taught to do was about to happen. Inko noticed that he didn’t wear his helmet, something that seemed to be a new development for him, perhaps Hatsume had brought the idea that he was more intimidating without it?

He stopped right in front of Takeshi, towering over the young man like a monolith, while Takeshi couldn’t see it through the darkness covering the Overlord's face he knew the Overlord was smiling warmly at him.

“ **_So, you have no place to call home do you? Then as of today, this Tower shall be your home.”_ ** the Overlord said bemused.

“W-W-What’s the catch?” Takeshi eventually stammered out.

The Overlord crooked his head, emerald green eyes fixating the boy. **_“Catch?”_ **

“T-There’s always something with people like you! No on--” the boy started coughing rather violently, his quirk had started acting up from all the stress he had been through today.

The Overlord paused, even as Inko took a step back he just stood there. When Takeshi stopped the purple cloud of poisonous gas that had covered a good third of the floor still hung around them.

“ **_What a magnificent gift life has granted you. Such a shame that no one is willing to see it.”_ **The Overlord said calmly and placed his right hand on Takeshi’s head as the gas slowly dissipated into the surrounding air and became harmless.

“ **_Do as you wish boy. If you intend to leave I will not stop you. The only thing I will assure you of however,”_ ** Izuku said, his voice turning darker. **_“there is no one else like me.”_ **

With that the Overlord turned around and slouched back onto his throne, the poison seemingly had not bothered him at all.

“ **_If you stay, speak to the Minion Master Gnarl, he will give you a place to stay and a task to do. Fulfill it with utmost care or face the consequences. If you leave, you know where the exit is.”_ **

The Overlord stated calmly from his throne.

After a short while of Takeshi staring at this behemoth of a man, who had just stood in a gas that had made most grown men pass out in seconds as if it was nothing, the boy bowed and after being pointed in the direction of the foundry ran down to meet this Minion Master.

“So, would you please explain what happened here? Why is everything so dark?” Inko asked eventually as Takeshi had gotten out of earshot.

“ **_Hatsume and I... experimented. The dark glints are harmless, save for a bit of ambient lighting.”_ ** Izuku stated flatly, leaving little for Inko to ask except the obvious.

“Is...Is Hatsume okay?” she found herself being actually concerned for the girl hearing this.

“ **_Given a value of ‘okay’, yes she is. She has been tirelessly working at the Forge for a while now, I believe our experiments caused a bit of an overload in ideas for her. Nothing she can not handle. She is as sane as she was when you left mother, I assure you.”_ ** Izuku said, sounding as if the whole topic was a bit odd to breach.

Inko blinked at the statement because being told that _Mei Hatsume_ was as sane as you saw her last was possibly the least assuring thing to hear.

“What did you do?” Inko eventually asked.

“ **_I channeled dark magic from the Netherworld lake into her. While other things did occur around and during that time, I suspect it was that, which drove her mad.”_ ** Izuku said trying his hardest not to let on that some of the other things he did with Mei were less savory than his mother would have appreciated, though his tone made it obvious to her.

Inko paused, blinked for a bit before letting the smallest of grins creep on her face. “You certainly work a lot faster than your father. She can’t be much worse off than before unless she’s screaming obscenities ceaselessly. Well more than she probably already has.” she giggled slightly.

“ **_Mother.”_ ** Izuku growled slightly, with an exasperation in his voice only a child could have for their parents embarrassing them, only this child was more than two meters tall and clad in full plate armor.

“ **_Report on your findings. We have wasted enough time on this topic as is.”_ ** Izuku said after letting his mother giggle to herself a little. He wasn’t going to hear the end of this one way or the other, so he may as well bring the topic to a close on his own terms.

Inko began explaining what she had found and seen during the day, noting that things had gotten even worse in Musutafu and recounting the events that had brought Takeshi to them.

Izuku listened, this was as close to a ‘how was your day?’ he ever got with his mother. As much as he enjoyed being taken care of hand and foot by his Minions until Mei came around it had been an emotion starved environment, out of necessity of course. There needed to be a sense of order, that order being that Izuku was in charge, no matter how friendly he was to his Minions.

Izuku started to pay attention when Inko mentioned the young heroes that had chased after the boy. With what little magic Inko had learned from Gnarl she conjured images of them, four in total.

Izuku’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he looked at these ‘heroes’.

“ **_A Mage...”_ ** He eyed the girl with brown hair.

“ **_a Knight...”_ ** he looked at the ‘Sports-car Knight’.

“ **_a Beast Master, beast included…”_ ** he looked at the image of the bird headed man.

“ **_...a Guardian.”_ ** he concluded on the red haired one.

“ **_All that is missing is a Thief and we have the entire menagerie of fools.”_ ** Izuku said with a low growl in his voice, he remembered Gnarls lectures of the kinds of heroes an Overlord needed to be wary of.

Izuku tented his fingers, something was wrong. While Inko could not see it a small smile was creeping onto his lips beneath the concealing darkness that covered his face.

“ **_Your reports have been...middling recently, mother. You are far more thorough usually. Names, places, voices, your usual attention to details is missing. One could dismiss it for mere complacency but I know you better than mere fools do. While I do not know what you plan for these ‘heroes’, I did not expect this attempted deception of yours.”_ **

Inko dreaded this conversation, trying to, most likely in vain, convince her son that perhaps slow down the plan a little. Give society another chance and maybe delay his inevitable rise for another couple of years. As much as she loved her son and thought that he had a point, people needed to change. He couldn't just force them to do so.

Then, Izuku laughed. A genuine Overlords laugh, the kind of laugh that sent shivers down the spines of entire armies and made the almost mad glee apparent to all who heard it.

When the laugh reached the Forge, Mei froze, her mad tinker halted for just a second. She knew that laugh, though not as loud and it had torn her from the insanity she had found herself in for the past couple of hours.

She blinked before grinning madly again, this time because her changed body felt amazing, her mind felt clearer and was absolutely filled with ideas of how she could turn this place into the center of her beloved's empire. It would take time certainly but once she could shed the pretense of still being part of the side of good she could devote herself to this task...and to her beloved of course.

“ **_Finally. You have come into your own within this place. A treacherous adviser of evil. Dreadful. Gnarl will be thrilled to have competition.”_ **Izuku said as his laugh subsided, though one could still hear it echo through the caverns.

“You’re not angry? I would have expected you to imprison me here at the tower for betraying you like this.” she almost couldn’t believe it.

“ **_Mother if I did not know better I would almost think you believe me a mere villain,”_ ** Izuku chuckled, “ **_this is not a battle for a mere city, or a mere trophy. My conquest is one of ideals, and if I can not stop your ill-fated plan when it comes to head with my own, I deserve whatever end befalls me.”_ ** his tone was one of respect for her, rather than for what she did.

“ **_Nevertheless, if you have nothing more you are willing to share, I shall see if Mei has recovered. Perhaps getting her a new wardrobe is in order now, considering that she will be needing it once the second throne is finished.”_ ** Izuku mused, Inko almost didn’t parse that he had basically just admitted to intending to make Mei his bride.

“I do have one more thing.” Inko said, with a small gesture a purple spark hit the ground, the illusions vanished and another took their place.

Inko had never seen Izuku freeze up like that before, his eyes widening in an almost disbelieving stare.

Then she could tell that he was grinning once more. **_“What a truly opportune revelation. Even the wildcard remains as strong as ever. I think I shall enjoy watching Mei make him miserable in the upcoming competition.”_ **

“Sire! Sire!” A scratchy, deeper minion voice came from one of the lamps as one of the Reds peeked over it.

“ **_Speak and make it quick, Fuego.”_ ** Izuku said, his eyes glinting up to the Minion. He had made a point to learn the names of all of his minions. According to Gnarl it was an empty sentiment but he felt it only correct to do.

“We found ‘em! The mindless ones!” The minion responded excitedly, almost dancing on the light fixture.

A cruel grin spread across the Overlords face. **_“Perfect.”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takeshi Bushijima:  
> You didn't expect someone from an MHA side story to make an appearence did ya?  
> I personally always found the gas related quirks fascinating and our boy Takeshi really got the short end  
> of the proverbial stick. I always hated how that side story went because 95% of it literally happens because the MHA heroes seem to be of the "punch first, ask questions never" variety.  
> Heck Izuku even got scolded by Rumi for not beating someone suspicious up despite there being no actual given reason as to why Takeshi did something bad.
> 
> For the wondering minds, we'll find out what happened to Mei in chapter 5.  
> There is also going to be something neat and small I plan to add once chapter 5 is released, which should hopefully happen within the next week.
> 
> See you around next time.


	5. The Crest Laid Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello there, I'm still alive.  
> This won't be the only story I update but it is currently my main one.  
> For the wondering minds: Estateless and Green Beach will update soon(tm) and I have not forgotten about A Hero's Wrath either.  
> Check the End Notes after you read the chapter for a little something I made for this story.

**~24 hours after the UA Staff meeting regarding the USJ incident~**

Four hours away from the city of Musutafu, a small car drives along a long and winding road. It was a rather small car, under usual circumstances expecting four people to fit in it was a far stretch.

The car was driving along the old road, winding its way through the calm and serene countryside like a snake heading towards its home. There were only two people in this car, heading towards what they feared would be a far more grim place than from which they had come.

The car's occupants were strange figures in their own right. Hizashi Yamada, Professional Hero ‘Present Mic’ and part-time radio-show host, whose blond hair one could mistake for a lightning rod, as his hair style seemed to be almost as tall as him.

The other was simply known as Nezu, the principal of UA Hero University and mouse-bear-hamster-genius creature extraordinaire. While his style of dress, consisting of a vest, white shirt, red tie and red high boots would not clue you in, he was a connoisseur of history and mythology.

Today these two were on a mission, though for what Yamada was unaware of. He had a decent hunch but he wasn’t one to assume. His boss was an enigmatic creature to begin with, he felt that any assumption he could make as to their purpose here was wrong or at least misguided in intentions to begin with.

After what felt like an eternity of silence Nezu finally spoke up as a small town came into view. “It appears our destination is within sight. Welcome to what appears to be a small sleepy hamlet in the middle of nowhere: Naraka Town.” Nezu spoke with a vague, grand gesture that made Yamada feel uneasy.

He knew he was supposed to ask why it only _appeared_ to be a small sleepy town in the middle of nowhere but he already knew why that appearance should be wrong. “Now I’m not entirely on track with the record but wasn’t this town-”

“-an absolute nightmare from which most heroes barely returned alive? Yes, quite so. Even Endeavor steered clear of it. Stories were told for decades that walking down the main street would leave you as nothing more than a set of smoldering boots.” Nezu confirmed his suspicion with cheerful clarity.

“In fact, the average life expectancy of people living in this town was, until about three years ago, less than twenty, if you can believe it.” Nezu nibbled at the back of his left front paw, the mere thought of this place made his fur stand up more than he wanted to admit. “Now?” he continued.

“Within the past thirty six months the death rate has plummeted, the towns economy has taken an upwind of approximately nine thousand and nine percent and the amount of people registered as unemployed or homeless is within single digits. Even the poor have two room apartments and steady employment.” Nezu concluded.

“Sounds...actually that sounds pretty amazing if I’m being honest. What do you suppose caused this massive swing? Did people just up and start realizing that murdering each other wasn’t gonna work out or something?” Yamada joked, knowing that the truth would have to be something far more serious if his boss had dragged him out here.

“That is what we’re here to figure out Yamada. I brought you specifically along because as much as it pains me to say, I no longer trust anyone else on my staff. It may sound cruel to say but-”

“-they’ve changed and for the worse.” Yamada cut him off, his eyes hidden by the heart shaped pink shades he was wearing. “You’re not the only one keeping an eye on things. I noticed. More than I’d like to admit to. Save for Power Loader and Hound Dog they’ve all started acting...unsettling. Some more than others sure but the noise is still there.” Yamada growled, his grip on the steering wheel tightening slightly, a tense expression had spread across his face.

“I can’t say for sure but I’m fairly certain that at least Midnight and Vlad King have become very different people over the past few years. Midnight stopped just flirting with students as some misguided attempt at teaching them how to deal with female villains. Now don’t quote me on this but I’m almost certain that some of the younger students are intimately familiar with her fetishes.” Yamada visibly cringed at the thought of this. To his confusion Nezu seemed to not be surprised.

“Indeed. Kan has become quite a bit stricter from what I have followed,” Nezu said, paying attention to the approaching town edge “I will not even begin to elaborate on the recent ‘work studies’. I am uncertain who taught our students to be reckless and endanger others over the slightest offenses, but whoever is doing it, I will find them and when I do I will fire them on the spot.” Nezu growled audibly.

Somewhere in Musutafu a blond, gaunt man sneezes loudly, startling several birds on a rooftop.

“We have arrived. Drive slower, we are within town limits after all. Do you know what my other reasons were for bringing you along?” Nezu asked but didn’t wait for an answer.

“You have proven yourself to be quite adept at reading people, far more than the average hero has. I suppose living around Aizawa makes telling apathy apart from boredom a necessity. We will be taking a trek through this town, visit some shops, drink some tea and I want you to tell me what you see, look for anything and everything that stands out, no matter how minor it may seem.” Nezu elaborated.

“That and Inui would draw far more attention than you. One animal-like quirk using entity with a human present is a Scooby Doo pair. Two animal-like quirk using entities in the same car is an obvious investigation being underway.” Nezu squeaked, slightly bemused by Yamadas odd expression which seemed to be stuck between ‘not pleased’ and ‘wondering if you are serious’.

A long pause took them as Yamada drove them to a parking lot. “It’s so quiet here. Too quiet...no who am I kidding, I think it's the first time I’ve had a quiet day in years.” Yamada said as they stepped out of the car.

“No cars, no motorcycles, not even a bicycle in sight. Save for a set of bus stops that appear to be decently used, there isn’t a soul in this town using a personal vehicle to get around.” Nezu took note, it was a weekday and just around the time people should be busy driving to work but the entire town was quiet.

Trips to several stores and a small cafe later and both of them couldn’t shake the feeling that while yes, the town was just a sleepy, friendly, little hamlet in the middle of nowhere, they were being watched. Usually being watched would illicit an effort on their end to find out by who they were being observed. This proved unnecessary because they already knew.

Everyone. Every last person, from the random newspaper seller to the waitresses at the cafe, which made some great black tea as Nezu found, was watching them. Not in the way they expected it either, there wasn’t any hostility behind their observers, no intention to stop them, or report what they had seen. They. Just. Watched.

“So,” Nezu began after they had made their trip back to the parking lot. “What do you conclude? Aside from the obvious of course.”

Yamada paused “Shouldn’t this wait until we’re outside of the town boundaries? Or at least actually in the car?” he sounded a bit incredulous.

“Yamada. If I had any delusions that hiding our conversation would do anything to help I would have given you a briefing before we even left UA.” Nezu said in a flat tone, making Yamada shiver.

They stopped a few meters away from the car, a man, or at least what they thought was a man, was leaning against their car door, watching them.

He looked to be slightly taller than Nezu at best, was dressed in an entirely black suit with a red tie, wearing round red sunglasses and a metal walking stick, to their confusion he seemed to not be wearing any shoes and had a leathery, dry complexion all around. His ears were sickle shaped and droopy and his overall appearance, well it seemed to be that of a brown goblin-like creature.

“’ello lads. No need ta worry I ain’t buggin’ you fa long.” The man said getting away from their car. “Nice ride ya got, not quite our style but still, worth a mention.”

“Who are you?” Yamada asked with a twitching eyebrow, the man had left a dirty hand-print on the car door.

“Name’s Gallow, as in Gallows Humor. I’m one of tha lads who helps keep this town running smoothly and nicely. Got a message from the boss man himself for ya: **_'Leave well enough alone.'_ ** He gets ya don’t like ‘im, donnea mean ya should be messin’ with somethin’ good.” Gallow finished his little spiel before walking towards them as slowly as one might expect for his size.

“Who would your ‘boss’ be then?” Nezu asked, despite being certain he knew the answer already.

“Ah that’s the question eh? Thing is the boss man says ya already know, rodent man. Yer a smart one and the boss man ain’t one for spelling things out. He’s been keeping an eye on things fer a lon’ lon’ time now.” The goblin man Gallow stretched slightly.  
  
“As is, I ain’t paid for chit chat, nor here tha fight. Well nah I’m always up for a scrap but I got things tha do as do you. If ya ever visit again, go to Joey’s, got some steak there that’s worth killin’ for.” With that and nary a look at them the goblin man walked off.

“So,” Yamada said with disbelief in his voice, “it’s real. It’s all real, not just some old fairy tale and some guy pretending to be an ancient evil reborn. Great. As if there wasn’t enough bad stuff happening all over the place.”

“You say that as if it was a surprise. Lets get out of here for now. There’s nothing left for us here.” Nezu said as calmly as he could manage.

A good thirty minutes outside of the town borders Yamada spoke up. “That town was different, everyone greets you there, not a rude word from one of them on how you look or dress,” he began, he almost sounded a bit wistful because he knew he wouldn’t be getting much of that back in Musutafu. “They seemed so...happy. As if the entire towns woes and conflicts were just never there. I am fairly certain that at least some of them were former thieves and similar but now? Now I couldn’t have told you that there is a bad bone in one of them.”

Nezu listened intently. “Why did you really bring me here?” Yamada asked suddenly.

“Aside from the other reasons? Because I know how you think. You’re uncertain what to make of the whole Overlord situation. You’ve taken to reading up on the stories just like I have and like me you are beginning to wonder if we’re still on the right side of history.” Nezu assessed, still as calm as ever.

“...Yes...something I did notice: Every shop owner, every waitress bids you goodbye with a variation of the words ‘For the Lord’. It’s never the same phrase mind, they put their own spin on it, their own little take on the phrase.” Yamada said after a while.

“What do you make of that?” Nezu asked, genuinely curious.

“This Overlord, while he did something to these people, he let them keep their individuality. He enforces some kind of rule or control over them certainly, but it’s not mind control. They didn’t change because he forced them, the change came on its own.” Yamada concluded.

“Ah. So you came to the same conclusion as I have. Several of the Overlord legends make note that the Overlord in question was unfailingly kind to his own subjects but ruthlessly efficient in dealing with his opposition. Other tales tell of ruthless Overlords, more destructive, possessive entities with no decency or care whatsoever. I believe that this incarnation of them is of the former, perhaps even having once wanted to be a hero themselves.” Nezu mused.

“A well intended extremist is still an extremist.” Yamada said.

“Oh of course, we will oppose him, it is our job to keep peace after all and a good goal can’t be allowed to be reached with evil methods…. but you have to admit the results of his work are undeniable. He turned a cutthroat hive of murderers and thieves into an upstanding place in less time than it takes a class of ours to graduate.” Nezu concluded.

They drove the rest of they way to Musutafu in silence.

**~A few minutes after Inko Midoriya left the Netherworld, Netherworld Tower~**

Mei Hatsume was having the time of her life. There really wasn’t a better way she could have thought of it. She sat, draped across the armrests of Izuku’s throne, just enjoying her time with him.

It was strange, the more she stayed around him, the happier and content she felt. He had this soothing influence on her that whenever she left the Netherworld Tower gave her a screeching migraine and made it hard for her to sleep.

Unbeknownst to her and Izuku, Mortis, the Minion Reaper and sole Blue Minion to still remain in the Tower, had found out why she fit in so well with the Minions.

Throughout the countless generations of Minions there had been some that became...intimate with humans. A rare practice and one that had been frowned upon by the current generations. Too hard to explain away why a human woman's father was a goblin-looking man with a rather lacking vocabulary.

Mortis had posted to Gnarl that the young Mistress was perhaps one of Giblets long lost descendants, seeing as his younger, wilder days were long over and her uncanny proficiency with smithing matched the old Minions easily.

Of course this information was handled by Gnarl the way he handled anything that was interesting to know but irrelevant, that is to say he had forgotten about it.

Mei had plans, she wanted to use the Sports Festival as her way out of Hero Society. In theory she could just move down here and never let on that she was working with Izuku but that was out of the question.

She was going to be his queen, the second in command of his army. It was not befitting one of her eventual position to hide her intentions. She would show the entirety of Hero Society just what they were up against.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what is the pitch black lake beneath the tower about?” Mei asked, tilting her head to the side while looking at Izuku, not just looking at his face but actually taking him in fully.

“I’ve seen it glow and could’ve sworn I saw little lightning bolts flying across it.” She was always a bit too into looking at him to the point that she had to remind herself several times while she was working to definitively _not_ think about him lest she set herself on fire. Again.

He wasn’t wearing his usual Overlord attire but rather a ‘disguise’ she had come up with. It wasn’t much of one, since his mane of green hair, gray skin and toxic green eyes were dead give away signs of who he was.

It consisted of jeans, red shoes, she had asked if he had any others around but apparently those were his only pair and a green long coat. She didn’t even bother asking him to wear a t-shirt, for one he would refuse and for the other...well she just felt he looked too good to hide his muscles like that.

Of course he still retained his gauntlets, but had also kept his armoured collar. He refused to explain why, though she wasn’t complaining.

Izuku paused, not because he didn’t want to speak but because Mei wasn’t the only one getting a bit lost looking at her opposite. It wasn’t helped that she was almost against his chest and wearing her black metalwork outfit, which made her figure one that burnt itself into his mind.

“ **_I suppose at this point you should learn of it.”_ ** He eventually grumbled, he didn’t want to leave the throne at the moment mostly because he actually really enjoyed being this close to her.

After a bit of a squirming on both sides they got off the throne with Izuku waving her along as they went to the top most part of the tower where a heavy door, disguised as a part of the wall, led them to a long staircase down the side of the cavern.

“ **_The lake is not made of any liquid you can find in nature. It is dark magic given form, I suppose the term ‘Dark Mana’ is accurate. All that exists converted into energy and corrupted by the forces of the Netherworld.”_ **Izuku explained as they were about a third down the long winding staircase.

“So there’s _actual physical magic_ that people can interact with. That’s... _amazing!_ ” Izuku couldn’t see Mei’s face due to how dark it was and because she was walking behind him but he didn’t need to be a psychic to know that she was internally squealing in excitement.

“Think about all the things we could make with it! If we figure out its properties, we could make the Netherworld _the most scientifically advanced place_ in the known universe!” He could tell she was striking a pose.

“ **_If it were that simple Mei we would know how already.”_ ** Izuku said, his tone flat.

“Science is _never_ simple! If it was simple you wouldn’t need scientists! Science is experimenting and failing until you find _something_ that doesn’t fail. If this ‘Dark Mana’ has a set of properties all we have to do is experiment with it until we figure all of them out. Once we have that done, the rest is figuring out what we can do with those properties to make use of it.” Izuku could tell that science was a topic Mei was not going to let anyone insult, not even him.

That only made her more attractive. He could respect such devotion to a craft. After all it wasn’t any different than his own devotion to his inevitable conquest.

“ **_I meant no insult towards science with that statement. As you no doubt have realized you are the first scientist here. Possibly the first one to ever even so much as come near this tower, let alone the Netherworld itself. The minions are not smart enough to understand what the ‘scientific method’ is and I am no genius.”_ ** The strange admission stopped Mei’s rant in its tracks.

They continued walking further down in silence, until Mei spoke up.

“Can...can we pause for a second? Just a bit.” The request made Izuku pause just long enough for Mei to be on the same step as him.

* * *

Gnarl wandered the library of the Netherworld Tower, he had been looking for a very specific tome but had trouble finding it. It was to be expected, the fog of the ages hung heavy over him no matter how much he pretended otherwise.

He had forgotten many things over the centuries, several entire wars for one. However, there are some things even your lost memories could not extinguish. He remembered his old masters, no matter how short their stay had been.

This tome however was a special case, he was not allowed to forget it. No amount of time should be sufficient for him to forget it and yet...and yet he could not find it!

A loud rumbling noise and the entire Netherworld cavern shaking dragged the old Minion from his thoughts.

He rolled his eyes, young masters, no patience or consideration for etiquette, well it was at least better than the one who could not get his mistress through the entrance without giving the entire army a show.

* * *

“Aaah. I wa-wasn’t trying to...aahh.” Mei couldn’t think straight, let alone get a sentence out, held up and pressed against the wall of the staircase by her lover. The thought of being his lover alone made her mind reel.

“ **_Oh were you not? That kiss disagreed. At least the impact did. You are fortunate I am not that easily harmed.”_ ** Izuku growled slightly, she could feel his teeth ever so slightly dragging down the side of her neck.

Izuku had admittedly not been taught much in regards to how to please a woman but he had gotten the impression that any man could be forceful, few could be gentle and very rarely one managed to be both. He, of course, intended to be better than any of them and judging by the melodious sounds his lover made he had the feeling he was managing that quite well.

Mei could barely find time to breathe, if he wasn’t taking her breath away from her by finding every last sensitive spot on her he could tease, he was busy capturing her lips with his own. It was as he had decided that he was tired of letting her think too much about anything. Anything that wasn’t him anyway.

She eventually felt his gauntlet clad hands reach her rear underneath her pants, causing a short squeak. “H-Hey! W-W-We...ahh.” She could barely find the time to do anything other than to feel like his plaything. An increasingly loud part of her mind found that a wonderful thought.

“ **_Mm?”_ ** Izuku paused, if only because Mei had found a way to regain her bearings and had put her hand on his face.

She breathed huskily. “We have a bed further up we can break in. For now we have something we wanted to do.” She tried to be serious and commanding sounding but the sway in her voice and incredibly bothered look gave her away...well that and Izuku was fairly certain that at least one of his hands was coated in something that was definitely not water.

“ **_As you wish. I predict that the bed will wait for us until a few hours from now however.”_ ** he said a knowing, desiring glint in his eyes. He had removed his presence from her body in the kind of motion that implied he both expected this outcome and was very much disappointed by the fact that he was right.

Mei, who tried her best to bring her clothes back in order, already missed his touch. The part of her that had been excited earlier was now scolding her for telling him to quit but for now she needed to focus. Or try to at least.

* * *

The Netherworld Heart was still at the very center of the Netherworld cavern. Izuku remembered it as if it was yesterday that he had waded through the lake towards it.

The only noticeable difference to the lake and the Heart, still held by the rock spires, was that the lake had not just refilled but grown massively at that. When he had come here first, it had taken several minutes to reach the edge of the lake.

Now it was barely half a minute before they reached the edge.

Mei’s eyes sparkled as she looked at the utterly alien substance. She saw the black and purple lightning bolts arc across the surface and couldn’t help but be as fascinated as someone who had just discovered a new world.

Without much of a word she pulled out a glass vial and very carefully filled it with the pitch black liquid.

“ **_You carry that with you? Where did you even keep that?”_ ** Izuku asked before wondering to himself if he really wanted an answer to the last question.

“Well yeah I do keep these on me. You know how many times support items can’t be made because someone didn’t take a sample? Seventy percent! Just because some idiot didn’t take a vial with them.” She said, noticing small lightning bolts arc around in it.

“Hmm. I wonder... could this kill me if I drink it?” she said curiously, flicking her middle finger against the glass of the vial. Tiny black and purple sparks escaped the vial.

“ **_Of a fashion. From what Gnarl has told me of its properties it twists the body, mind and soul of all who come into contact with it. Though how much truth is within that statement I could not say.”_ ** he grumbled slightly.

Part of his mind was still very much on that staircase and the rest of him regretted heeding her request. If only because he knew it delayed the inevitable.

The mark he had put on Mei when they first met was a bit more than a simple way of keeping track of her at a longer distance. The mark allowed him to feel out her emotions and even snippets of her thoughts. It also slowly channeled his own ‘evil presence’ into her over time.

He had no intention of controlling her of course, he had long realized that mindless servitude was pointless and counterproductive to his goals. Gnarl had, of course, recommended a perfectly obedient mistress. If for no other reason than to avoid a repeat of the Tower Heart being damaged.

Mei let the thought of what this ‘Dark Mana’ could possibly do to her play through her head. If that old Minion had lied to her beloved, this could irreversibly change her, corrupt her into a monster, or just plain kill her.

A small bit of rolling the vial between her fingers later she decided.

“Eh. Nothing risked, nothing gained, can’t start a nuke without a little radiation.” she said suddenly and with a gulp the entire contents of the vial disappeared down her throat.

In hindsight, a small part of her thought, perhaps drinking a magical substance called ‘dark mana’ was about the most suicidal thing she could have done. At least she was certain a part of her had thought that as the rest was busy coughing up black and purple embers like a thick smoke.

Her skin felt it was burning off her body, her ears were ringing and her vision blurred into a dark haze. She fell to her knees trying to scream but her lungs had no air to do so.

Then the pain stopped, instantly and without warning. After a while she finally regained the ability to breath and she looked up. Through the dark haze she could see the shape of a gauntlet clad hand occupying most of her vision with two green lights behind it.

“ **_You. Foolish. Curious. Maddening woman. Why must you worry me so?”_ ** his voice sounded angry, tired, worried and to her like that of a god.

She could not see it but his other arm was dipped into what once was the edge of the lake. Now there was only crystalline sand, black as pitch. The lake had evaporated by about a third.

* * *

**Sexual Content ahead. Skip to the next double line if you don't want to read it.**

* * *

She didn’t leave him much of any time to react, not that he could have, he had...invested a lot of his gathered power in her just now.

With the same kind of energetic force she had claimed his lips on the staircase she did so again, throwing him to the ground behind him and causing the entire cavern to rumble through sheer enthusiasm.

This time no voice in her head told her to stop, no scientific rational or interest kept her tied down and no care for anything other than they were both present and ‘alone’, if she could call being watched by the entire army of minions from the tower above them ‘alone’.

It didn’t take long for her to find herself once again on the back foot of the situation with their positions switched, with him gazing down at her and claiming her lips before letting his hands roam across her.

Every kiss made pins and needles run through her spine, every little touch made her wish for more. However, she could see both a bit of confusion and impatience in his eyes.

He raised his hand, snapped his fingers and with a ‘ting’ sound that reverberated off the cavern walls she found herself completely undressed, save for her boots and him equally undressed, save of course his armor collar and the gauntlets.

“..You can do that? Wooooooouuuh...huhuhu.” she trailed off as her eyes wandered down.

“To scale. Never thought I’d see that.” she mumbled, she only ever had seen statuesque men in reference books and those lacked the details.

“ **_I would claim the same, however your ‘scale’ changed.”_ ** Izuku mused.

Only now she realized what her physical changes actually included. She had grown at least a few inches in height, her skin had turned a darker gray than Izuku's own. Her curves had filled out more as well, she hadn’t been badly endowed previously but her change had only increased it.

What she couldn’t see was the faint yellow glow of her eyes and that her ears had taken a slight sickle shape. Izuku didn’t notice it either, thanks to her hair covering her ears. He did however note that her hair had grown to match the rest of her height.

“Well then. That’s...new.” She blinked. “...why did you not remove my boots?” she eventually asked, noticing that she was still wearing them.

A twitch from his lower section answered that question succinctly.

She did not have time to reply before his lips and tongue found a different target than her mouth this time. She found any possible objections were buried underneath the sensation of his tongue inside of her.

She was certain no mortal tongue should be able to move like his, nor that the face she was making was particularly queenly right now. It took every bit of her mental strength to not just scream unintelligible obscenities, though perhaps settling for “Conquer me!” sounded a bit too desperate, she didn’t care.

After about a minute of this she shuddered, her legs closing around his head, releasing waves of her juices as she came, though she found herself too out of breath to scream.

To her first yelping surprise turned moan-filled ecstasy he was far from finished eating her out. She felt herself going blank and numb several times in the next few minutes, her fingers digging into the sandy ground around her so hard that cracks started traveling up the cavern walls.

After a third wave of shudders exited her, she could barely catch her breath before he let go of her.

The look in his toxic green eyes and the malicious smirk as his thumb wiped the rest of her juices away from his mouth told her that she perhaps should have considered her choice of words better.

Telling an Overlord, whose entire life was built around taking over and ruling things, to conquer something was...ill advised.

He sat back, letting her recover ever so slightly before saying **_“I told you did I not? The bed will be waiting for a few hours.”_ **his tone sent a pleasant shiver down her spine.

After gathering herself a bit she stood up, stumbled on wobbling legs before sitting back down between his legs, her head resting in front of his cock. Despite her ‘to scale’ declaration earlier he wasn’t abnormally huge as his build would imply, though she was of course not entirely sure what to expect in the first place.

She gave his full length an enthusiastic lick, and while his face wouldn’t show it ,the slight shiver she felt course through him told her he was enjoying this a lot.

To his surprise, though he would not show it, she took his full length into her mouth. Something told him she wasn’t as new to this as she appeared. That thought drowned in the sensation of her moving her head.

She swirled her tongue around his cock with every bob of her head. She felt every twitch of his member with every little movement she made. His musk drove her mad and in turn the glint in her eyes when she looked up at him sent an expectant shiver through him.

She didn’t need a warning when he came, she could feel it, while he wasn’t one for moaning or grunting, what little physical movement he did show was indication enough. She shuddered slightly, drinking his seed, her lips still firmly sealed around his member.

The almost feral glint in her eyes as she let go of him made it clear that she intended to hold him to his word.

She rose to her feet, intending to make no ceremony out of what happened next. Neither side had much more than mere sensation to go off as she slowly lowered herself onto his still perfectly erect member.

He could feel her finger nails dig into his shoulders before their lips crashed onto one another again.

He was fully sheathed inside of her and neither side of this was willing to let that feeling pass, she barely noticed the small amount of blood escaping her lower half, magically enhanced resilience was quite a fortunate thing.

She began moving up and down after a bit more of their make out wordless, near soundless moans escaping them both, his lips and hands exploring her all the while.

It wasn’t quite what the minions had expected, none of their previous masters had much of any restraint when claiming their mistresses and none of the mistresses had ever done anything other than let themselves be their Overlords plaything.

Neither cared how much time passed down at the bottom of the cavern, having given in to desires, carnal needs and most curiously: love.

The more time passed the less restraint and control was exercised, neither giving the other a chance to breath or rest.

After a while the entire cavern shuddered, not in the usual fashion Overlords and their mistresses caused it previously. It was less a few singular impacts and more a profound rumbling that permeated even the tower for untold hours.

* * *

**Sexual Content is over. You can look again.**

* * *

When Mei finally came to, her vision was hazy, though she did realize that she wasn’t on the floor of a rock covered cavern anymore and instead had been placed in the most heavenly bed she had ever been in.

She noticed that Izuku wasn’t next to her but considering how everything below her midsection was numb and barely responded to her trying to sit up she guessed she had been out for a while. She could recall with perfect clarity what they had spent their time, blushing intensely at the thought, she could still feel his gaze leveled at her.

However now that her mind had finally cleared from pain and the love crazed haze she found herself bombarded with new ideas, too many in fact. She began seeing images of objects and inventions that did not yet exist flash into her mind as if she had drawn them on blueprints.

The assault of information on her mind made her clutch her head for a while before the context came to her.

At first she giggled quietly to herself before a mad laughter took its place. Of course! That had to be what her beloved had seen with his own eyes. The truth, the absolute reality that everyone living in this time had missed.

Still laughing madly to herself she got out of the massive bed, stumbling and almost falling over, catching herself and getting dressed.

Her mad laughter could be heard all the way to the Throne room where Izuku sat, pondering how to possibly spin the situation to his mother when she inevitably found out about it. They hadn’t kept their love making to the cavern floor, though the collection of new massive craters at the bottom and in some of the walls would make you think otherwise.

He did wonder how to deal with the ceiling however, eh, he just would have Quaver deal with it. That did make him wonder just how _had t_ hey reached the ceiling?

* * *

**~Three nights before the Sports Festival~**

Naomasa Tsukauchi stood outside a compound a few hours away from UA. He had been asked, personally, by both the Hero Commission and UA to accompany this operation.

Well not only them, there was someone else who had asked him to be around for this operation. He hadn’t heard much of All Might in the past five years, since the man was pretending to be dead and was helping Hero Society behind the scenes.

At least, that was what All Might kept telling him he was doing. The more time he spent around his old friend the more something felt wrong. He couldn’t place his finger on exactly what but he could tell that his friend had changed and not for the better.

For now he needed to shelf his concerns however and deal with the task at hand.

“Sir! We’re ready to go. Our escort from the Hero Commission is also prepared.” A police officer in riot gear said, saluting quickly before heading to one of the squad cars.

Six cars and an armored truck were involved in getting these...things to Tartarus and yet Naomasa couldn’t help but feel nervous. Even with their hero escort, who consisted solely out of the gun wielding hero Snipe, they were in a dangerous situation.

If this “League of Villains” decided to ambush them they would not be able to hold them off for long, shaking his head he headed to the truck cabin and got in, no sense in worrying it was too late for objections now.

The Caravan began moving into the night. It should have been a stormy, rainy, night Naomasa thought. It certainly would have befit the task. However it wasn’t raining but that’s the weather for you. It was however ungodly dark thanks to it being a new moon.

The trip went uneventful for the first hour, until the Caravan approached a forest.

Snipe, who was sitting in one of the squad cars in front of the Truck noticed it first. “...Y'all hear that? Sounds like motorcycle engines, old ones. Harleys maybe?” he looked to the edge of the forest.

“Perhaps some people on a road trip? Villains these days aren’t known for stylish vehicles.” The Police Officer driving the car reasoned.

“Don’t be stupid. No one drives a damn Harley anymore. Let alone in the middle of nowhere at night.” Snipe growled as they drove along the road through the forest.

“Why are we taking this path anyway? This is prime ambush territory.” Snipe continued surveying the area around them but aside from fog between the trees he didn’t notice anything.

Then he paused, why was the fog so dark?

Before anyone could answer that riddle they heard the engine sounds approach from the sides as they exited the forest.

A whole fleet of greasy, ramshackle looking low-rider motorcycles joined the Caravan from both sides of the forest exit. Sitting on each was what appeared to be a goblin-like person, dressed in various fatigues that seemed to match no group of military or villain organization any of them had ever seen.

“What the?!” Snipe got ready to shoot any and all of them before pausing as one of them raised a sign over his head.

"W'r takin ova." The entire police crew had no idea who these goblin people were but their spelling was awful.

Every car, even the truck, saw one of these signs being held up, the amount of time the passengers spent deciphering what was written on them was enough for the motorcyclists to put their plan into action without being stopped.

CLONGK

Snipe turned to the back of the car where one of these people had placed a large metal plate with a strange symbol he had never seen before on the trunk. The same happened to all of the squad cars.

With the sound of inhuman screams, red, hellish portals opened right in front of the cars causing each of them to disappear one by one.

“HIT THE BRAKES!” unfortunately, as the people still in the armored truck realized within the next few seconds, a truck driving at high speeds was not easily stopped as it too was swallowed by a giant red portal. One of the minions in his stupor crashed into the back of the truck right as it vanished.

“Idiots. I told you to stay away from the back of the truck.” a voice grumbled from the road.

Standing in the middle of the road was the reason the truck had tried to stop, a young man in a dark green hoodie wearing a mouth guard that had small tubes connecting to gauntlets on his hands stood in the middle of the road, hands in his pockets.

“Mission accomplished, my lord.” Takeshi breathed calmly. He stopped creating the poison gas that had blanketed most of the area around the forest, making the unnaturally dark “fog” vanish. The trees had rotted into mere stumps by the time the fog retreated.

“ **_Excellent. Return to the Tower at once. If any attempt to halt you, dispose of them.”_ ** the young man's master answered in his head.

As the boy turned to leave he felt the eyes of someone on him. He turned his head towards the source of the feeling, noticing a small drone with a camera eye floating off in the distance. With a small mock salute Takeshi disappeared into the night together with the army of minions.

* * *

Tied to a spire of rock at the bottom of the Netherworld Cavern was, unconscious and bruised, Naomasa Tsukauchi. He could barely hear the heavy, metal footsteps of a person approaching and could not hear the many small feet tapping on the ground following the bigger ones.

“ **_Wake him. Perhaps a bit of acid in his eyes will lift his spirits.”_ **a deep, commanding voice that made Naomasa’s mind rattle stated darkly.

He could feel a strong burning across his face and jerked awake to reality.

“ **_So kind of you to join the living again. Mr. Tsukauchi. I hope you enjoyed your trip here. For this place, unless you convince me otherwise, will be your last stop.”_ **

Naomasa Tsukauchi was not one for fairy tales, he never believed in them. He was a man of logic, of the belief that anyone could become a good person no matter what their bad decisions were.

So here he sat, arms tied to a stone spire, staring at a living, breathing myth. Faced with someone who he knew could not and would not be redeemed and who could not be convinced that their path needed to be changed. A crisis of faith in the making.

“ **_I admit, I am glad. Our way of procuring you and your allies did not harm any of you lethally. Rejoice for they live as well. For now.”_ **the armor clad behemoth of a man spoke darkly, his hand folded behind his back.

“ **_However that may change. For their continued survival depends entirely on your willingness to cooperate with me.”_ **the man mused, Naomasa could only see his eyes shining from beneath an unnatural darkness.

“...We’re men of the law. I will never...” Naomasa was cut off by the man raising and snipping the fingers of his left hand, the metallic ‘ting’ of his gauntlet reverberating off the cavern walls.

“ **_Kill one of them and bring me his head.”_ ** the Overlord commanded without an inflection in his voice. One of the minions hurried away.

“ **_Understand this. The only grace you have at this moment is mine...”_ ** Naomasa could hear a strangled sounding scream further away from them.

“ **_...and my patience for the obstinate is thin.”_ ** the minion scurried back to them, holding the decapitated head of one of the policemen as if it was a prize. The Minion was wearing the man's riot helmet, his personal trophy. The Overlord took the head of the killed police officer onto his hand and turned it around, barely acknowledging the man's features.

“Please.” Naomasa began pleading. “None of these men deserve to die.”

“ **_Oh? Are you attempting to die in their stead? How noble of you.”_ **The Overlord laughed cruelly.

“What do you have to gain?” Naomasa eventually asked, dejected.

“ ** _What I gain is of no consequence to you.”_** The Overlord stated coldly. He dropped the dead police officer's head like a stone, it landed slightly in front of Naomasa..

“ **_The only thing of consequence to you at this moment in time is what I wish to know. You will either give me the information I seek,”_ ** The Overlord placed his boot on the decapitated head and slowly applied pressure. **_“or you will watch and hear them perish. One. By. One.”_ **

With an uncomfortably wet cracking sound the head was reduced to a red smear, splattering Naomasa’s face with blood.

“…. What do you want to know?” Naomasa asked, after staring at the smear that had been his former comrade.

“ **_A simple matter. An easy matter. Questions that I am aware you know the answers to.”_ ** The Overlord spoke as he turned away, putting his hand behind his back again before turning his head just enough towards Naomasa for the shine of his to be reflected back.

“ **_Why has the hero All Might been pretending to be dead for the past five years?”_ **

Naomasa stared in disbelief. It couldn’t be, no one who wasn’t directly involved in the matter was aware that All Might was still alive and well. So how?

The Overlord laughed cruelly but this time Naomasa could tell something was wrong, it felt more like the laugh came from inside of his own head.

“ **_Oh Mr. Tsukauchi, you poor, unfortunate soul. You yourself told me. You refused to inform me of the rest the last time I questioned you. Now however? Now you will tell me everything I ask of you, without fail. For if you do not.”_ **

Naomasa stared up at the Overlord in shock at the image in his head.

“ **_Your fellow officers' lives will be merely the first drop in the sea of blood on your hands.”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sprites of Izuku and Mei (edited by me from Disgaea 5 sprites, fittingly using a game about Overlords to depict an Overlord)  
> [](https://imgur.com/v9wnEW4)
> 
> I figured we needed some visual reference for the characters, so I made these. They're not 100% the way I envisioned them but as close as I can get.  
> I'll make more of these sprite edits down the line to show off the various characters of importance.
> 
> We had our first voyage into Izuku's style of Overlording in this chapter.  
> Yes, he may have a good goal in mind, planning to rule the world to make it a better place. However that should not deceive you into thinking he'll be a shining paragon of virtue.  
> In Izuku's mind there are two roads: You kneel, or you die. Always remember that.


End file.
